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THE DAY DIPLOMACY DIED IN THE OVAL OFFICE

CapitalTimesNews / 2 months
0
4 min read

By Babafemi Ojudu I was startled when I saw the video clip that emerged from the Oval Office yesterday. It was a scene that should never have played out in any nation’s highest diplomatic chamber, let alone in the hallowed halls of the United States presidency. The Oval Office, a space traditionally reserved for measured statecraft and dignified engagement between nations, became the setting for an extraordinary display of public humiliation—an event that will go down as a dark moment in the annals of international diplomacy. Watching that clip, I was reminded less of a formal diplomatic exchange than of the kind of public tirades one might expect from Portable, the notorious Nigerian musician infamous for berating his former collaborators, baby mamas, or anyone who crosses his path. Or worse, it felt like a street-corner altercation where a senior gang member bullies a subordinate into submission. This is not how states should relate. This is not how diplomacy is conducted. And I struggle to find any historical precedent for the sheer abrasiveness of what we witnessed. The scene was not a discussion; it was a harangue—a coercive performance meant not to strengthen alliances but to humiliate an ally. It reminded me of my own encounters with security operatives in Nigeria in the 1990s—officials who, after an arrest, would gather around in numbers to badger, insult, and break the spirit of their captive under the guise of interrogation. When reason fails to persuade, they resort to threats, and when threats fail, they simply lock you up. In this case, Donald Trump and his co-conspirator in the public berating of Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky stopped just short of calling for him to be carted off and detained in Guantanamo Bay. This was not diplomacy; this was arm-twisting. Yes, stronger nations do apply pressure on weaker ones, but rarely in such a brazen and undignified manner. It was the kind of psychological bullying one might expect in a school dormitory, where a senior student torments a younger one to the point of breaking their self-esteem. Zelensky, a wartime leader navigating the existential survival of his nation, found himself subjected to a spectacle that reduced him from a visiting head of state to an object of scorn—ordered out of a meeting and forced to stand as his nation’s dignity was chipped away. One wonders how he truly felt in that moment—trapped, verbally battered by both the first and second most powerful figures in the United States. What was their objective? What was their calculation? The practice of diplomacy is rooted in mutual respect, even among adversaries. Henry Kissinger, the master tactician of realpolitik, understood that power alone cannot sustain relationships—diplomacy is also about perception, negotiation, and maintaining equilibrium. The idea that a nation should treat its allies with dignity is a foundational principle in international relations—one I was taught in my master’s degree class at the University of Lagos. European leaders, from French President Emmanuel Macron to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, have made clear that allies should not be pressured in such a crude manner. The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, has emphasized that diplomacy must be rooted in “strategic autonomy”—a term that, in this case, seems to have been completely disregarded. The great theorists of diplomacy, from Hans Morgenthau to modern scholars of statecraft, recognize that the strength of a nation is not merely in its military or economic power but in its ability to build and sustain alliances. The United States, once seen as the paragon of global leadership, has set a dangerous precedent with this display. The world is watching, and the message it received was clear: the new age of diplomacy, at least in some quarters of Washington, is one of intimidation rather than persuasion, of humiliation rather than partnership. One of the core tenets of Yoruba wisdom says, a kìí pa alejo eni ǹjàkin—you do not slaughter your guest and call it valor. Respect for visitors is deeply embedded in our culture, as it is in many others. The idea that a visiting head of state could be so publicly shamed, with cameras rolling, is an affront not just to Ukraine but to the very essence of diplomacy itself. What happened in the Oval Office yesterday will not be forgotten anytime soon. Not by Ukraine, not by America’s allies, and certainly not by history. Welcome to the new age of diplomacy—where might replaces right, where alliances are forged under duress, and where global leadership is measured not by wisdom but by the ability to humiliate. Senator Babafemi Ojudu is a Nigerian Politician and Journalist.

OPINION: TRUMP THINKS HE HUMILIATED ZELENSKI. HE REALLY HUMILIATED THE UNITED STATES

CapitalTimesNews / 2 months
0
5 min read

David Rothkopf The Trump-Putin Axis came fully out of the closet today. The new U.S. administration has clearly embraced what could be called a mob boss foreign policy both because of the criminal pasts of the men who are leading it and because of the tactics they appear to favor. In an Oval Office meeting with Ukrainian president Volodomyr Zelensky, Donald Trump and his dangerously ill-informed yes-man, JD Vance, the U.S. president pressed for a deal to squeeze mineral assets out of Ukraine in exchange for some ill-defined level of continued support for that country that could only be described as extortionate. Then, when Zelensky failed to fall to his knees and kiss the hem of Trump’s garments in thanks, both Trump and Vance began to try to bully Zelensky in the most thuggish and repulsive way imaginable. It was an ugly display of foreign policy crudeness the likes of which we have never seen transpire in the White House. It is tempting to call it inept. But it was not. It achieved precisely the goal that Putin and Trump had long sought, to produce a public break between the United States and Ukraine that would directly and meaningfully support Russia’s illegal, brutal conquest of its neighbor. Trump and Vance, however, were rebuffed by Zelensky in important ways. When the Americans sought to perpetuate lies that have been a staple of Kremlin propaganda and Trump campaign speeches, Zelensky stood up to them. He refuted the idea that Ukraine provoked Russia’s invasion. He rejected the ahistorical nonsense that Putin only invaded Ukraine because he sensed former president Joe Biden’s weakness. He reminded those viewing the encounter on U.S. national television that in fact Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014 (a point on which Trump embarrassingly tried to correct him) and that the war raged for all four years Trump was in office the last time. He pointed out that he sought a diplomatic solution only to have Putin violate the terms of deals that had been struck. With each correction Trump and Vance grew more furious and out of control. Trump vainly tried to intimidate a man who has stood up to far worse since he assumed Ukraine’s presidency. Vance criticized Zelensky for not thanking Trump publicly for…well, for what? Trump has made it clear that he would stop U.S. support for Ukraine and that he was sympathetic to Putin, a man who has sought both to deny Ukraine’s right to exist and to wipe the country from the map. Unsurprisingly Zelensky was not cowed by the two-bit goons who confronted him. At the same time, while the meeting went off the rails and Trump undoubtedly felt he had done well for his audience of one on Red Square, Zelensky successfully made it clear how much the world had changed since Trump has taken office and sent a message to European allies that they would have to assume a new role in their common defense now that the U.S. administration had so clearly switched its allegiance from the Atlantic Alliance it had built and led for the past 80 years to a monstrous dictator who has sought throughout his career to destroy both that alliance and the United States itself. That’s right, Trump and Vance are leading the first openly and aggressively anti-U.S., anti-Western, anti-democracy foreign policy in American history. (Russians loved what they saw with Putin ally and former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev wrote on social media “The insolent pig finally got a proper slap down in the Oval Office. And @realDonaldTrump is right: The Kiev regime is ‘gambling with WWIII.’”) While some of the most extreme MAGA Republicans on Capitol Hill issued statements in support of the Trump-Vance performance, there was deep consternation, anger and despair not only from Democrats but also from GOP Russia hawks. Liz Cheney, for example, rightly stated “History will remember this day.“ It is surely one of the darkest in the history of American foreign policy. Further, while some on the right may be quietly cheering this new era of mafia-inspired testosterone-poisoned non-diplomacy diplomacy, it would be a mistake to think of the Don in the White House as the Don Corleone of U.S. foreign policy. Considering where he gets his ideas and talking points and whose interests he serves, Trump is more the Luca Brasi of Putin foreign policy. Moronic muscle. An ignoramus with nukes. (That said, let’s not lose sight of the hugely embarrassing and damaging performance of JD Vance. Vance, like Trump, had virtually every fact wrong. Furthermore, he was completely out-of-line addressing a foreign head of state as he did, especially one who is one of the genuinely great heroes of our era and who has been fighting courageously not just on behalf of his own people but in defense of the ideals and interests of the U.S. and our long-time European allies.) Trump thinks he humiliated Zelensky. He did not. He humiliated the United States of America. In addition, he put us all at greater risk of further conflict in Europe by encouraging Putin. Mob boss foreign policy will not work. It has not worked for Putin whose violent forays into his near abroad have ended up being a disaster for the Russian military, the Russian economy and for Russia’s international standing. And it will not work for Trump despite his many years emulating American mobsters like John Gotti and surrounding himself with mob lawyers in mob-infested industries like gambling and real estate. He’s a paper tough guy. That was never more clear than on this infamous last Friday in February 2025 when Trump fully revealed his decision to ally the United States with the most nefarious global criminal of our generation, Vladimir Putin, and to declare himself a lieutenant to the monstrous criminal enterprise on which Putin has focused throughout his two decades of dictatorship in Russia. David Rothkopf is an American foreign policy, National Security and political affairs analyst and commentator.

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