OPINION: Does Trump Want to be Remembered as Chamberlain or Churchill?

My previous, rather gloomy, column nevertheless ended on an optimistic note.

Although President-elect Donald Trump did not appoint Mike Pompeo or Nikki Haley to positions within his administration, he cannot remove recently elected Republicans in both chambers of Congress who, on the whole, share their pro-Ukraine views rather than Trump’s and, particularly, JD Vance's pro-Russia sentiments.

Michael McCaul, Mike Rogers, and Mike Turner, the high-profile leaders of this majority, were the authors of a superb “Plan for Victory in Ukraine”

And now it would seem all of Ukraine would like to hear these three distinguished friends of our nation voice their opinion on Russia’s current totalitarian challenges to the Free World.  I hope we will hear them soon...

We did hear their powerful voice a week or so ago.  On Nov. 21, Michael McCaul, current chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, addressed the Atlantic Council Frontpage event “Russia and the Authoritarian Challenge.” He painted a bleak but very frank picture of a global war that is, for all intents and purposes, already underway:

"Russia was our enemy, an adversary. They still are today. You call it an axis. I call it an unholy alliance that Chairman Xi [Jinping] and [President Vladimir] Putin made at the Beijing Olympics, two weeks before the invasion of Ukraine. You can't separate the [Iranian] Ayatollah from Putin. Putin invited Hamas to the Kremlin right after Oct 7 [massacres].  The alliance between Xi and Putin is clear. North Korea has now sent ten thousand troops into the conflict. We don't choose our enemies. All four of these dictators chose us."

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Trump returns to the White House next month having pledged to bring a swift end to a war that NATO says has left more than one million dead and wounded since Putin‘s 2022 invasion.

Over the course of the almost three years that this large-scale military conflict has played out, McCaul and his friends have consistently and sharply criticized the Biden administration's response to Putin's aggression, calling it belated, insufficient, and indecisive. 

“We're projecting weakness, not strength. That would invite more aggression from Putin. It also impacts Chairman Xi and his calculus, looking at Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific.  Moldova would certainly fall within a day, as would Georgia.  And then, all of Eastern Europe would be under threat and the dark cloud of Russian domination. We can't afford to lose this fight. Ukrainians are fighting for our national interests, and we are betraying them."

But McCaul does not limit himself to criticizing the Biden administration.  Without mentioning Trump by name, McCaul is ruthless in addressing the ultra-Trump wing of his own party:

“I find it very strange. I can't explain it. I suppose there's an isolationist wing within my party that possibly existed in the 1930s.” 

“Why this weird synergy between the weak - one clear weakness in the Biden administration and people who want to make America strong again?” Ambassador John Herbst the moderator of the Atlantic Council Frontpage event asked.

“I don't know. I always ask the question, what would Reagan do? To my Republican colleagues, what would Ronald Reagan do, the guy who brought down the Soviet Union? And now we have these pro-Putin, Russian-loving people. I don't understand it,” McCaul said.

He used this policy speech to stake out a clear position as leader of the bipartisan pro-Ukraine majority in Congress.

“You'll have fringes on the left and the right that will never vote for Ukraine but it's the members in the middle, the sensible center - I'm kind of more center right than more center left - that will bring this coalition together.”

McCaul's clearly defined position makes him one of the most important political figures in Washington at this critical juncture in world history. He is fully aware of both the responsibilities and the opportunities that accompany his unique mission. The Pro-Ukrainian majority in Congress has already de-facto blocked nomination of several most   of Trump’s more odious appointees.

From the lectern at the Atlantic Council, that ideological bastion of the Deep State and the Free World, he addressed an existential question to us all, but to one person in particular - Donald J. Trump – “Do you want to be remembered as Chamberlain or Churchill?”