Dear readers, you probably have not heard the news that I have posted above as the title for this brief essay, but then you are not in the press pool of NewsX World and I am doing your listening for you there.

Similarly, you did not hear previously and probably do not even know today that yesterday a Russian state-owned widebody jet landed in Kennedy Airport in New York carrying a delegation of Russian parliamentarians from the State Duma headed by Vyacheslav Nikonov, a veteran legislator, consummate diplomat with extensive foreign experience.  This trip may be called a ‘timid exploratory mission’ reestablishing ties between Russian and American medium level politicians that were long ago broken off by the American side per Dmitry Peskov’s description of it earlier today. This may not be newsworthy in the same sense as a president-to-president summit, but it is a promising development nonetheless, a straw in the wind.

And which way is the wind blowing?  For that, let us return to my headline above. Quite remarkable news if true. And it would appear to justify President Putin’s insistence in the face of substantial opposition from his own foreign policy establishment, including his Ministry of Foreign Affairs, that it pays to negotiate with and to draw closer to Donald Trump however repugnant, however contradictory the man may be.

Make no mistake about it: the Russian establishment now considers Trump to be the fool’s fool. They see his conduct of the war of aggression on Iran as disastrous and likely to go very badly for him if indeed he attempts to put feet on the ground on Kharg island or elsewhere in Iran.

I note in passing, that the Russian political establishment, like its American counterpart points to Trump’s reliance on Mossad, on Israeli intelligence for setting his expectations when he decided to embark on his Iran war. What we see here is that despite its reputation as being the most competent as well as bloodiest intel operation in the world, despite its demonstrated ability to blow up hundreds of its enemies with explosive pagers and the like, this same Mossad is worthless for political and military analysis, for setting strategy against chosen enemies.  Worthless! 

Of course, if Trump proceeds with his threat/promise to Zelensky and the Ukrainian president agrees to leave the Donbas, that will drive an enormous wedge between the United States and Europe, between and among Member States of the EU itself.

NB – the podcast of The Bulletin program on News X World which we recorded 20 minutes ago will likely become available later today and I will post it here at that time.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2026

I was surprised and pleased to be invited onto the panel of debaters from India, the USA, China brought together by India’s widely known host Arnab Goswani to discuss Trump’s apparently failed initiative to form a joint naval force to open the Straits of Hormuz and also the question of America taking or destroying Iran’s export installations on Kharg Island.

I was fortunate to be the second panelist to speak coming on at about minute 18 on this podcast. Moreover, I was allowed to speak my mind to the end without interruption.  However, I expect that the Community will find nearly all of this podcast to be of interest because of the behavior of the host, Goswani, who is distinctly unfriendly to, contemptuous of Trump and by extension of the USA.  This is a 180 degree shift in position from what I experienced during my first appearance on this Indian channel when all but one of the panelists was very pro-American.

Last December, Belgium’s prime minister went up against European Commission President and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz at the monthly meeting of the European Council, the executive body consisting of the heads of government of all EU Member States, and flatly rejected the Commission’s plan to confiscate Russian state assets held in Euroclear (Belgium) for the purpose of collateralizing a 95 billion euro loan to Kiev to continue the war for a couple more years.

The fur flew in all directions, other EU leaders were aghast, but De Wever did what our celebrated heroes of common sense, Viktor Orban of Hungary and Robert Fico of Slovakia had never dared to do: veto an anti-Russian measure that was put to a vote of the Members. De Wever attracted the support of Malta and a couple of other minor EU states, but then was joined by Giorgia Meloni of Italy, which put paid to von der Leyen’s insane plans. In the end, von der Leyen and Merz were compelled to proceed with their Plan B, which was for the EU to assign reserves in its own budget for purposes of collateral, a solution which would make it clear from the very outset that financing Ukraine would come at a direct and immediate cost to the taxpayers of Europe, where that notion is highly unpopular.

I took my hat off to De Wever in December. Now I do so again based on a news item on page one of today’s Financial Times: “Belgian Prime Minister calls for EU to normalise relations with Russia.” This article draws upon an interview which De Wever gave to the French-speaking financial newspaper Echo de la Bourse in which he calls upon his European colleagues to acknowledge that Europe cannot defeat Russia economically or militarily without massive support from the USA which is not forthcoming. Accordingly, it should reconcile itself with the necessity to strike a deal with Russia and resume its access to Russian hydrocarbons.

In its second-paragraph, the FT identifies De Wever as “a rightwing Flemish nationalist” which might smack of the populism and extremism that its readership may be presumed to detest.  In fact, De Wever is a follower of Thatcherite economics and a ‘pocketbook’ as opposed to Romantic nationalist. His first concern has always been the prosperity of Belgian citizens which can be best served by pragmatism as opposed to the ideological posturing so beloved by the European Commission and a large majority of the leaders in other EU Member States.

Unlike Fico and Orban, De Wever has been careful to maintain the fiction of solidarity with Ukraine in its just cause against Russia. I sincerely doubt that his public statements in this vein reflect his inner convictions on who is right and who is wrong in the Russia-Ukraine war, but then again the public statements of many EU leaders in favor of Ukraine do not reflect their inner thoughts, as De Wever says openly in this interview.

The FT article takes the trouble to inform us that De Wever’s coalition partner, his foreign minister, Maxime Prévost, of the center-left francophone party Les Engagés, has criticized the Prime Minister for his advocacy of normalized relations with Russia. Per Prévost, Europe must first be invited to the negotiating table and a peace treaty prepared before it can relent on the anti-Russian sanctions. Of course, that is combining the irreconcilable, because the EU’s presence at the negotiating table would only serve to sabotage those talks.  I point out that not only Prévost but all the francophone parties of Belgium are deeply anti-Russian. These parties have traditionally looked to Paris for a cue on all political issues, and we all know where Emmanuel Macron obstinately stands on peace with Russia and normalization of relations.

As a 46 year long resident of Belgium who always looked up to the French speaking elites in Brussels, who never took the time to speak Flemish properly, and who looked skeptically at the seemingly provincial Flemish politicians in the North, I admit that I was deeply mistaken as to where genuine sagesse is lodged.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2026

Is it ‘stupid,’ or ‘idiotic’ or ‘doomed to fail’? Or is it something entirely different:  wanton murder? moral depravity? and the like…

Political scientists generally limit their commentary on current events, however tragic or drama-filled, to what is quantifiable, to effectiveness of the given strategy and likely outcomes.  Moral judgment is by nature outside their purview.  And so it is no surprise to me that on the most widely watched youtube platforms of commentary in the past week, my colleagues focus their minds on how realizable Donald Trump’s stated objectives in his war of choice against Iran may be. Does the United States have enough munitions and air defense missiles for a prolonged fight?  Is it possible to force open the Straits of Hormuz? Can Trump withstand the growing threat of political disaster in the November elections if gasolene prices continue to rise at the current rate?

In this brief essay, I put aside my degree in political science and speak to you as I would around a dinner table, as your uncle or grandfather. And I do not hesitate to introduce judgments grounded in Christian values rather than in efficacy.

Readers of my writings going back several years may recall that in the autumn of 2017 I called for the impeachment of Donald Trump following his outrageous speech to the UN General Assembly in which he spoke of wiping North Korea off the face of the earth. Of course, Trump’s actions against North Korea never went beyond bringing a U.S. aircraft carrier to its shores. The realization that Pyongyang had several nuclear bombs and missiles for their delivery persuaded Trump to back off.

Iran, by contrast, has no nuclear weapon and now we see the consequences:  Trump’s savage attack on the country, his decapitation strike on its civilian and military leadership, his bombing of Tehran and other cities across that country, and his step-by-step implementation of threats to utterly destroy the nation. 

The only thing worse than Trump himself is the actions and talk of his Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, who is the embodiment of a bloody serial killer.

Of course, the obscene behavior of this American President is only the culmination of a process that in recent history began with George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The world hailed the election of Barack Obama in 2008 and he was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize solely for the fact that he was not George W. Bush and there was the widely held expectation that Obama would bring the USA back into the civilized world.  For that to happen, Obama should have called for a judicial inquiry into the crimes against humanity committed by Bush and most particularly by his Vice President Dick Cheney, who was the evil genius behind so many of the abuses, both domestically and in foreign policy of the Bush administration.  However, from the very first day in office when the Obamas allowed themselves to be hosted by the Bushes and taken around the White House rooms that would be their new residence it was clear that there would be no accountability for the outgoing criminals at the apex of the U.S. government.

‘Accountability’ is a word that we have heard used repeatedly in public discourse in the past week or so of this war.  Trump violated the Constitution and federal law by not going to Congress for approval of his planned war on Iran. He and his team were not being held accountable, i.e. answerable for their actions.

However, I maintain that this is too indeterminate a censure.  The real rot in the upper levels of the U.S. government is properly identified by the Russians as ‘безнаказанность’ or ‘impunity,’ going unpunished.  No one has been forced to pay for their crimes. To be sure, this is not a uniquely American problem.  Europe has its share of unpunished violators of international law, leaders or followers in waging wars of aggression.  So far only one devil among them was properly brought to justice and sentenced to prison, from which he is presently temporarily let go free– Nicolas Sarkozy, who faces a return to prison shortly for crimes that seem petty insofar as they relate to illegally taking electoral contributions from Muammar Gaddafi, but in truth led to France’s leading the way to Gaddafi’s eventual barbaric murder.

In the past week, Pete Hegseth has made public statements about the launch of the war on Iran, about the bombing of the elementary school and killing of 165 young female students on the first day of the war. If these statements were to be released to a Nuremburg style tribunal they could rightfully end in his being sentenced to public hanging.  Donald Trump’s public statements have been similarly outrageous in demonstrating utter contempt for human life.

If this war on Iran continues to go badly for American forces and for the global economy, there is the prospect of Trump losing Congress and essentially losing all power in November.  That is not quite the same as a Nuremburg trial, but it does chip away at impunity.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2026

Last evening I gave a half hour live on-air interview to Press TV (Iran)  that I will not be posting here because under  present war conditions their staff is lucky to be alive and working. They surely do not have free time to edit and upload podcasts.  But I did have the presence of mind to present some points in that half-hour which I wish to share with the Community in this brief essay, namely that BRICS is just another talking shop that counts for nothing in the world of geopolitics, that the Global South has no military forces, no Hard Power to speak of, that in all the world there are presently only two countries actively fighting to bring down American global hegemony and usher in a fairer, multipolar world –  Iran and Russia.

                                                                             *****

Stupid is as stupid does. That has been one of my core analytical tools over the years. By this I mean that diplomas from prestige universities do not necessarily tell us anything about a given person in positions of authority. Yale law degrees did not ensure intelligent, effective behavior in James Sullivan or Tony Blinken during their service in the Biden administration. On the contrary, they espoused and implemented stupid, ignorant and destructive policies because they lacked relevant knowledge, life experience and judgment.

Similarly, Power is as Power does. A country with enormous GDP, a nuclear arsenal and otherwise well- armed is not a Great Power if its top officials behave like underlings (to quote Shakespeare) and seek to engratiate themselves with bullies, displaying a lack of dignity and self-respect.

I have discussed the issues of Power, otherwise called Deterrence with professor Glenn Diesen in past months when speaking critically, in particular, about president Putin. A couple of days ago on ‘Judging Freedom,’ I remarked that the recent behavior of chairman Xi of China has been even more depressing. His repeated invitation to Donald Trump to come to Beijing later this spring is unseemly, in very poor taste coming so soon after Trump launched his barbarous war of aggression on Iran in the midst of negotiations which seemed so promising.

Now let me add to this List of Shame prime minister Modi of India who a couple of months ago caved in to U.S. pressure to stop buying Russian oil. Why? To avoid 50% tariffs on a small part of Indian trade with the U.S. which otherwise is dominated by Indian IT services which are irreplaceable for the US?  The consequence was to publicly invalidate the value of BRICS as the creator of a new, more just world order.

Notwithstanding my recent criticism of Putin’s ‘gently, gently’ approach to his war on Ukraine, he is fighting, he is smashing the combined forces of NATO in and around Ukraine. Russia is thereby doing the world an invaluable service.  Meanwhile, Iran’s fight for survival may be even more salutary for a new world order if it is carried to its logical conclusion and inflicts a humiliating defeat on Trump that brings him down, results in ‘regime change’ in the November elections.

Time will tell.  In the meantime, I say ‘hats off’ to the journalists at Press TV

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2026