Bessent: India buying Russian oil was inevitable. That’s why we gave a 30-day waiver.
The oil was already on the water and refineries needed supply. Otherwise it would have gone to China. It’s unfortunate Russia benefits, but we hope only for a short time.
1/
Bessent: Our actions were not about China. They were about U.S. interests. Venezuela had become close to a failed narco-state.
The goal is to protect the Western Hemisphere and support Latin American countries moving toward market economies and closer ties with the U.S.
2/
Bessent: When I flew to Argentina last spring, we had to avoid Bolivia because it had closed its airspace to U.S. military aircraft.
Now Bolivia is becoming an ally again. Chile also shifted back. This is a chance to strengthen economic and security ties with the U.S.
3/
Bessent: The military operation was meant to stop Iran from protecting its nuclear program with missiles.
If nothing had been done, in a year or 18 months Iran could have had two or three times more missiles and weapons.
4X
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Fukuyama on Trump's Iran deal: This was not a win. It was a total US capitulation, merely solving a problem that Trump and Netanyahu themselves created by launching the war in the first place.
No regime change. No surrender. The IRGC is more firmly in control than ever before 1/
Fukuyama: No commitment to stop enriching uranium. No commitment to ending support for Hezbollah or Houthis. No agreement on protesters. All kicked down the road into 60-day negotiations.
Trump treated these issues as already conceded. But if so — why weren't they in the MOU? 2/
Fukuyama: It is very unlikely Iran will budge over the next two months. These are precisely the issues that speak to the regime's core identity and survival.
He chose to back down and accept a return to the status quo from before he started the war on February 28th. 3X
Petraeus: Ukraine is outnumbered five to one in personnel and twelve to one in the economy.
They are taking the fight to Russia on the front lines, on the Black Sea, in the depth of the battlefield, and inside the Russian Federation itself. Every single day. 1/
Petraeus: Ukraine has sunk over 35% of the Russian Black Sea Fleet — without a navy.
They did it with aerial drones that find the ships and maritime drones that sink them, all designed by Ukrainians themselves. The fleet is now hiding in a port as far from Ukraine as possible. 2/
Petraeus: They have hit at least 40% of Russia's fuel storage and refineries.
They blew up a fuel depot in St. Petersburg the morning Putin opened his economic forum, then hit again the next day. Russia has taken more killed and wounded than the US did in all of World War II. 3X
Snyder: Russia's 2022 war plan was not a military plan, it was a political plan. It assumed Ukraine is artificial, not real, invented by the West. Within days they expected to be in Kyiv.
Not because of military calculation, because they believed no one would fight back. 1/
Snyder: Putin read intelligence through a worldview where Ukraine isn't real. Agents promised support once troops came. In that framework — invade and everyone sides with you.
All that money paid to agents led to nothing. People in Ukraine were politically Ukrainian. 2/
Snyder: It was a huge miscalculation — Ukrainians were going to resist. The ideological convictions from books Putin read, from Soviet attempts to Russify history, shaped how this war was planned.
This invasion wouldn't have happened if Russia understood Ukraine was real. 3X
Macron: Trump arrived thinking Ukraine would lose and wanted a quick deal. At the Anchorage summit, he nearly handed over territory Ukraine still controls on the ground.
Then three things fundamentally changed his calculus and the shift has been decisive for the war. 1/
Macron: Every three months, Western and Russian analysts predict Ukraine will finally collapse.
Every three months, they are proven categorically wrong. Ukraine is resisting with stunning innovation and a military production capacity that no one anticipated. 2/
Macron: First, Trump saw Ukrainians are credible, determined fighters who defy every prediction.
Second, Europeans are finally taking real military responsibility — a coalition of willing armies will march in the July 14 parade. That signal reached Washington clearly. 3/
Applebaum: Putin has presented a fake image of Russia to the world. He talks about leading a traditional society
In reality, divorce is very high, abortion is common, very few Russians go to church and less than 5% have ever read a Bible. It's not a traditional culture at all 1/
Applebaum: Part of the European right and the American right have this imaginary Russia they use as a political symbol — not understanding it has no relationship to reality.
Most people who admire Russia haven't even been to Moscow or St. Petersburg, let alone the rest of the country. 2/
Applebaum: Putin went back into Soviet history books and re-imposed old plans.
The Soviet occupation of Ukraine in the 1930s and Czechoslovakia in the 1940s looks like Ukraine today — filtration camps, arrests of teachers, mayors, political leaders. It's the old playbook brought back. 3X