A sea change has taken place in the way the US electorate discusses issues of foreign policy over the last decade.
Former President Donald Trump spoke with distinctive brashness on subjects assumed to be beyond political debate in Washington, such as the United States’ fraught relationship with Russia and the country’s role as self-appointed “policemen of the world.” On the other side of the aisle Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders enjoyed a similar populist appeal, alleging “massive fraud” in US military spending and questioning former President Barack Obama’s effort to overthrow Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.
The mandarins of the US foreign policy establishment have spent the last several years attempting to put the genie back in the bottle, returning to a time before the prerogatives of the “Deep State” were openly speculated and commented upon, but the influence of Trump’s candidacy and tumultuous time in the White House is still felt years later.
As Vice President Kamala Harris solidifies her position as President Biden’s Democratic heir apparent, speculation has emerged over the possible foreign policy of her administration and how it would differ from that of a second Trump term. Former Ukrainian diplomat and whistleblower Andrii Telizhenko joined Sputnik’s The Backstory program this week to comment on the matter and discuss prospects for peace as fighting between Moscow and Kiev continues.
“Everybody saw it coming,” Telizhenko said of Biden’s decision to end his candidacy for reelection Sunday amid concern over his age and mental acuity. “The deep state in the Democratic Party used him and used his problems within his family [with] his son Hunter to keep him in place, to use him and his health to keep America in place, to bring this war with Russia.”
“They don’t need him anymore,” he concluded. “That’s why they made the change from one lame duck for another lame duck that is going to be fully controllable.”
Harris, who previously served as California’s state Attorney General before a four-year stint in the US Senate, has been noted for her relative lack of formal foreign policy experience. Some commentators have looked to her advocacy on immigration policy under President Biden to attempt to decode her broader outlook on global affairs. One analyst speculated she would initially rely on Biden’s foreign policy team, while others suggest she would continue her predecessor’s strong support for Volodymyr Zelensky, who has ruled Ukraine without an electoral mandate since the end of term in May.
Republicans frequently allege President Biden’s support for Kiev is influenced by his son’s financial ties to the country as a former member on the board of the troubled Ukrainian energy company Burisma. Others suggest he is simply too old to manage the task of overseeing complex matters of foreign policy.
Biden is often considered a neoconservative, a term used to describe a muscular US foreign policy that has traditionally found favor in both major political parties in the United States. His promise to restore a more traditional approach to international affairs is perhaps best exemplified by his reliance on figures like Secretary of State Antony Blinken and former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland.
Nuland has served, in one position or another, in the administration of every US president since Bill Clinton – with the exception of Trump’s four years in the White House. Nuland provoked the ire of the Russian government and other observers for her open support of unrest in Ukraine that led to the forced resignation of former President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014.
Telizhenko suggested Trump may be more likely to chart a different course on US foreign policy through his relationships with foreign leaders like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
“He’s more likely independent on the situation,” Telizhenko claimed of the former president. “From what I see, he has a clear path on a peace deal and I think that was why Prime Minister Orban from Hungary was traveling the world. He had Trump’s peace plan in his pocket and that’s why he had meetings with President Putin, Xi Jinping of China, and then he basically came back to Washington [and] met Trump almost right away after the NATO convention and spoke to Zelensky on this trip.”
“I think that’s what Trump was trying to push through Orban at this moment, to get everybody on the world stage, [to] get their thoughts and get things [rolling],” he said.
But Telizhenko warned Trump would face opposition against any attempt to change course on Ukraine from people surrounding former Secretary of State and CIA Director Mike Pompeo. “I see that tension happening right now,” he claimed, warning neoconservative interests within the Republican Party would lobby for a militarist foreign policy.
The apparent division within the Republican Party was on full display during its recent convention in Milwaukee, with hawkish figures like Pompeo as well as avowed anti-interventionists like commentator Tucker Carlson each holding court. Carlson raised eyebrows during his previous tenure at Fox News by alleging covert US influence in Ukraine’s 2014 regime change, breaking a powerful taboo by openly discussing the methods of CIA-backed “color revolutions.”
Telizhenko claimed the future of Ukraine should be decided by Ukrainians alone, without the interference of those who wish to use Kiev as a “battering ram” against America’s perceived adversaries.
“I want a peace deal in Ukraine,” he insisted. “I want a change of government. I want a NATO-free Ukraine. And that's what I think a lot of people even in the United States are looking for because that's the only way out for the Ukrainian situation right now.”
“We have to decide what to do next, not somebody in Washington or Brussels, and I hope Trump understands that.”