This May Be the Actor–President’s Finest Performance, but Will He Bring the Whole House Down?

UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss will meet with officials in Washington today to discuss further support for Ukraine after the UK and United States were thanked by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for their moves to sanction Russian oil. Peter Nicholls/PA

Commentary

No one can doubt the courage of Ukraine’s 44-year-old president, Volodymyr Zelensky, in defying Russia’s invasion of his nation, or the courage and suffering of its people, but his judgment is another matter.

His goal, even before the invasion, seems to have been to lead the world to war.

He initially downplayed the threat posed by Vladimir Putin’s forces amassing on the Ukrainian border. On Jan. 28, he held a press conference and chastised Western leaders for exaggerating the danger saying, “We see troops coming and going … some being withdrawn.”

He particularly disapproved of the decisions by the UK and United States to evacuate staff from their embassies in Kyiv, stating: “Diplomats are like captains. They should be the last to leave a sinking ship. And Ukraine is not the Titanic.”

But then, his position changed dramatically, and not because Russia invaded his country. He flip-flopped before then.

He knew that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had threatened that Moscow would “retaliate” if its demands for a halt to NATO expansion weren’t met. Yet, on Feb. 19 at the Munich Security Conference, Zelensky defiantly made it plain that he not only wanted Ukraine to join NATO, but he also wanted its nuclear weapons on Ukrainian soil.

Putin responded by telling his people, “This is the very red line that has been talked about many times. They crossed it.”

I raised these issues in my last article and a week later, Tucker Carlson picked up on the same theme.

“At a public press event at the Munich Security Conference, Kamala Harris encouraged Ukraine to become a member of NATO. ‘I appreciate and admire President Zelensky’s desire to join NATO.’“ Carlson told his viewers. ”Message: Up yours, Vladimir Putin, go ahead and invade Ukraine. And of course, Vladimir Putin did that just days later.”

Zelensky’s incendiary speech warned delegates that NATO indifference could be a repeat of the mistakes that led to two world wars in the last century.

“The annexation of Crimea and the war in Donbas affects the whole world. This is not a war in Ukraine, but a war in Europe,” he claimed, adding: “How did it happen that in the 21st century, Europe is at war again and people are dying? Why does it last longer than World War II?”

This was now his turn to exaggerate, as he was speaking before the current invasion.

By claiming that Ukraine’s territorial dispute with Russia over Crimea and the Donbas region was on par with the Nazi takeover of most of Europe, he also was seeking to make this the West’s problem. But his speech ended up making a bad situation worse by provoking Russia to launch its full invasion.

Zelensky knew he was picking a fight he couldn’t possibly win without the help of NATO forces. In doing so, he was gambling with the lives of his fellow countrymen, women, and children, but at least he had Kamala Harris at his side. So, does that make her an accessory?

Since then, he has been endlessly lobbying NATO countries for their support while rejecting offers to be evacuated from Kyiv. He once famously said: “I need ammunition, not a ride.”

Via a historic first video link into the House of Commons, Zelensky’s speech received a standing ovation from the packed chamber after quoting Shakespeare and his version of Churchill’s “We will fight them on the beaches” speech, made in that same room over 80 years ago.

Zelensky told MPs that “Ukraine wasn’t seeking this [conflict],” which is correct, but what did he expect would happen when he made his fateful speech in Munich?

He ended his 10-minute address with: “Find a way to make our sky safe. Do what you can, what you have to do, and what is obliged by the greatness of your country and your people.”

Rousing stuff and Boris Johnson responded accordingly. He told MPs: “In a great European capital now within range of Russian guns, President Volodymyr Zelensky is standing firm for democracy and for freedom.”

The British have so far responded by sending more weapons. Almost doubling the 2,000 light anti-tank missiles they already delivered, along with longer range Javelin missiles and surface-to-air missiles.

Comparing the Russian invasion to 9/11, UK Foreign Minister Liz Truss later threatened, “We want a situation where they [Russia] can’t access their funds, they can’t clear their payments, their trade can’t flow, their ships can’t dock and their planes can’t land,”

That’s fightin’ talk, but what Zelensky really wants are NATO no-fly zones, NATO boots on the ground, and, eventually, NATO nuke silos underground, which could lead to war between Russia and the United States that would surely only end in one MAD (mutually assured destruction) way.

People in high places in the West seem to agree with him to the point of adulation. One exception is Germany’s new chancellor, Olaf Scholz, who, after meeting with Putin, opposes NATO membership for Ukraine in the near future. The United States, for now, also opposes no-fly zones, since that would require NATO to shoot down Russian planes.

But just imagine the reaction in Beijing if NATO demanded that China recognize Taiwan’s right, as Truss put it in her speech about Ukraine, “to choose their own security arrangements.” Why not try asking them if they want to join NATO, even if the island lies between the East China Sea and the Pacific Ocean? Though of course, NATO won’t dare to even call Taiwan a nation, lest it upsets the CCP—might is the only right they recognize there.

Putin’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, told journalists that Russia’s goals are limited to making sure Ukraine never again poses a military risk. He also claimed it will be up to Ukrainians to choose what government they should have—provided it doesn’t join NATO or try to take back Crimea.

This is the same demand he made to Zelensky before Russia invaded, before many people died—with a lot more deaths still to come—and before parts of his country lay in ruins.

If Ukraine had chosen to become neutral, it would have been joining nations such as Finland, Malta, Ireland, Japan, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Sweden, Turkmenistan, Costa Rica, Austria, and even the Vatican City. Not much use to NATO though.

While Western outrage and concern at the human misery now being inflicted is understandable, at the same time, it’s hypocritical. America and coalition forces were once the aggressors that invaded Iraq in 2003 under the false pretext that it had weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

According to a Lancet study, that war led to about 655,000 deaths from March 2003 to June 2006, and the regional destabilization it created eventually allowed the terrorist group ISIS to establish its bloody caliphate, bringing the death toll much, much higher.

To justify that invasion, then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair stood up in Parliament and falsely told MPs that Iraq could deploy WMDs that could target British bases in Cyprus within 45 minutes. His sole proof turned out to be a plagiarized “dodgy dossier.”

That was a lot of deaths on the off-chance that Saddam Hussein might have a weapon. And there was no intelligence to say he was going to use it—how could there have been as no WMDs were ever found in Iraq, whereas, Zelensky has admitted to the world his plans to site them in Ukraine and aim them in Russia’s direction.

Today, there are many calls for Putin to be tried for war crimes, yet the architects of the invasion of Iraq received no sanction over the deaths they caused there. Indeed, “Sir” Tony Blair just received the highest level of knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II.

To turn Zelensky’s Titanic metaphor against him: Is he now acting like the captain who wanted to reach America so fast that he ended up steering his ship into an iceberg—a Russian one? And are our leaders risking making all of us his passengers?

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.