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So Trump has now not only signed an oil deal with Russia, but also wants to lift sanctions. This seems totally indefensible. Not only does it send a clear signal (if the Greenland debacle was not clear enough) that America no longer gives a shit about the rules-based world order or the stability of the west as a block, by removing sanctions from a country that is fighting an aggressive war and that Europe regards as a serious threat. It also lifts sanctions on an ally of Iran. A country that America is currently fighting and active war against. A country that Russia is providing with military aid. He is trying to lower the high oil prices caused by the war with Iran, but seemingly making Iran stronger in the process by aiding its ally, thus making the war more difficult.
Is there some 5head strategy move I am not seeing here? Or is the man actually that inept? Is this because he is mad that Zelensky called him weak?
It seems stupid and incredibly short sighted, and it is difficult to see how this will even help America.
Can you explain what exactly you mean by this term and in what sense it was giving a shit about it before? I find its use quite vexatious, since it forces you to either accept a highly tendentious framing of the goals and practice of US foreign policy or get bogged down arguing about terminology where the other party has a plethora of official sources to legitimise their usage. Compare perhaps to the labelling of leftist street violence as "anti-fascism".
The alliance between Russia and Iran has always been transactional and ridden with mutual distrust. It is not unsound policy for the US to try to pry them apart (and indeed, I fully expect that any agreements they make with either include secret addenda stipulating to betray the other). Manifestly, any Russian support for Iran so far has fallen far short of the theoretical possibilities.
In this case it is about how military landgrabs are supposed to be a breach of rules enforced by western countries.
Likely because most equipment is being used in Ukraine. If Trump gets his way and Russia wins, equipment will be freed up that could be handed to their allies.
This is omitting a pretty important part about who the "rules" actually apply to (evidently Western countries and allies are not subject to them with respect to targets who are not). Between Israel, Kosovo and North Cyprus, and dozens of smaller examples (Pakistan/Afghanistan, China/India...) that simply don't matter, it's clear that there were never any uncircumscribed rules; beyond that it's just a matter of putting the wordcels (or, perhaps nowadays, LLMs) to work to convince the general public that all is kosher.
Since Ukrainian tolerance for casualties is much higher than American or Israeli, the same piece of gear would go further in Iranian hands (and thereby allow the Russians to extract concessions from the Americans). It is in fact conceivable that something like this happened.
Azerbaijan is the most important other recent example. Western countries didn't kick up much of a fuss because the victim, Armenia, was a Russian ally.
Western countries didn’t kick up a fuss because Azerbaijan is an Israeli ally. It’s the only Muslim country Israel sells military equipment to.
Western countries didn't kick up a fuss because they can't locate either country on the map. To the extent they can, Azerbaijan is more brown-coded than Armenia so it was merely evicting a colonial power.
Theories are fun.
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