Could Putin and Zelensky ever make a deal?

Warring parties often strike deals. Exchanges of prisoners of war, brief cessations of operations to allow for the delivery of humanitarian aid, covert talks between respective intelligence services to map out possible ways forward, and tentative peace feelers. Since President Putin ordered thousands of troops across the border into Ukraine on February 24, 2022, there have been no peace negotiations and no sign of meaningful compromise from either Moscow or Kyiv. And yet, after nearly three years of horrendous casualties and infrastructure destruction in Ukraine, preliminary talks are underway, according to the Financial Times, for a deal in which both sides would agree to stop or reduce attacks on energy installations. While it might seem a bizarre development, it’s now in Moscow’s interest as much as in Kyiv’s to end the continuous targeting of power plants. Ukraine has developed long-range attack drones which have effectively struck targets deep inside Russia, including oil refineries. From the beginning, Russian airstrikes have hit Ukraine’s power networks, knocking out about nine gigawatts of the country’s energy infrastructure. During the summer months, Russia bombed and destroyed half of Ukraine’s power generation capacity. Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, said it was “the power equivalent of three Baltic nations”. With winter approaching, if that level of destruction continued, Ukraine’s population would inevitably face freezing months with daily power blackouts. Talks, sponsored and mediated by Qatar, took place in August but any progress towards some form of deal was scuppered when Ukrainian forces invaded the Kursk region in western Russia and seized a wide area of territory. Moscow pulled the plug on the talks. However, the FT quoted a diplomatic source as saying there were “very early talks” about restarting discussions on ending strikes on energy facilities. The Kremlin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, was dismissive of the report, describing it as fake news. But Peskov has a habit of protesting too much. Something is going on. In similar fashion, the so-called grain deal between Russia and Ukraine, now aborted, was constructed through the intervention of Turkey and the United Nations. It was a deal which seemed unlikely at the time, allowing Ukraine to continue exporting its grain stocks by cargo ship along a 357-mile corridor across the Black Sea to the Bosphorus Strait. Moscow promised to provide safe passage. The deal which enabled Ukraine to return to near pre-war grain export levels of around 6.5 million tonnes a month, operated from 22 July 2022 to 17 July 2023. Prior to the agreement, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its deliberate targeting of the country’s grain stores, spiked global food prices and led to warnings of famine in Africa. Russia also temporarily halted its grain exports, and the combination raised fears of a world food crisis. Turkey which controls the maritime routes from the Black Sea, hosted the talks that resolved the crisis. Since Russia scrapped the deal, Ukraine has cleverly adapted its export routes to avoid Russian attacks. Whether the reported preliminary talks on an energy infrastructure deal, originally initiated by the Russian and Ukrainian intelligence services, come to fruition, it does raise the question of whether back--channel negotiations might lead to something even more hopeful, such as ideas for bringing the war to an end. However, that would seem to be over-optimistic at present. Putin is going to be in no mood to do any deals with Ukraine’s President Zelensky while Ukrainian troops remain as an occupying force in Kursk. Indeed, thanks to his friend Kim Jong-un, several thousand North Korean troops are even now training in Russia to join the Russian counter-offensive units attempting to liberate the region. In the meantime, the European Union is doing its best to provide Ukraine with some of the energy supplies it requires to survive the winte. The current plan is for the EU to restore 2.5 gigawatts of energy capacity which is the equivalent of around 15 per cent of the country’s needs. However, about 80 per cent of Ukraine’s thermal plants (coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear) have been destroyed and a third of hydroelectric power is also out. So, even with the EU’s help, power supply is going to be restricted throughout the winter. Russia, too, has suffered from attacks on its energy infrastructure. Last month Ukrainian drone attacks hit the Moscow oil refinery and the Konakovo power station in the Tver Oblast which is one of the largest energy producers in central Russia. Kyiv has made it clear it intends to continue with such attacks with the aim of forcing Moscow to the negotiating table. The reported Qatar--sponsored talks could be the best hope for both Kyiv and Moscow to call a halt to this type of targeting. Then we will see if it leads to something more significant.

Joe Biden has just lost the election for his vice president

To every single pro-Trump Republican voter and undecided Republican voter it sounded like President Joe Biden called them all garbage.He didn't, or at least he didn't mean to say that but the way it came out it sounded definitely like he said exactly that. And it didn't help that Kamala Harris swiftly made a statement saying she doesn't believe that anyone supporting Trump is garbage, or words to that effect. Poor old Joe and poor Kamala. She's probably done for now in terms of grabbing any Republicans to vote for her. The White House put out a clarification, desperately trying to show that when Biden appeared to call Republican supporters garbage, there was actually an apostrophe before the 's' and that he was referring to the comedian who was so coarse and rude in his supportive speech at Trump's massive rally in Madison Square. The comedian, Tony Hinchcliffe, described Puerto Rico as a floating island of garbage. Biden's apostrophe was there all right in the written version of his remarks but it still came out badly from the president's lips, and Trump of course seized on it. With one week to go before the election, it could not have been timed better for the Republicans. Biden stumbles at the best of times but his latest mispeak may have caused irreparrable damage to Kamala's campaign for the White House, however many times she stresses that she wants to be a president for all Americans (even the garbage ones!)

Does Hamas want a ceasefire?

The president of Egypt has come up with the most modest of ceasefire proposals to try and generate new momentum to end the war in Gaza and bring the remaining 101 Israeli hostages home. Following the killing by Israeli soldiers of Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader in Gaza, on 16 October, there was a degree of optimism, especially in Washington, that a ceasefire and diplomatic solution to the war in Gaza might be on the cards. The Biden administration hoped the death of Sinwar, an ideological opponent to all the most recent ceasefire attempts, would unblock the peace-making impasse. But Hamas survivors, hunkered down in their tunnels and bunkers beneath Gaza, appeared incapable, let alone interested, in making any sort of deal. Now President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has proposed a 48-hour ceasefire to facilitate the release of just four Israeli hostages in exchange for an unspecified number of Palestinian prisoners detained by Israel. The Egyptian leader's objective is for the two-day truce to then lead to a longer-term ceasefire. He has suggested a ten-day negotiating period following the release of the four hostages. His proposal has coincided with the arrival in Doha, capital of Qatar, of the heads of the CIA and Mossad for renewed talks for a ceasefire/hostage-release framework. The deliberate limitations of the el-Sisi plan underline how challenging it has been for any of the peace negotiators to persuade Hamas, and Israel, to consider compromise. No Hamas representatives will attend the meeting in Doha between Qatar's prime minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, David Barnea, Mossad chief, and Bill Burns. CIA director. Egypt which was also represented has been intimately involved behind the scenes and last week hosted a group of Hamas delegates to guage their thoughts on el-Sisi's proposal and future negotiations. Is Hamas and its diminished leadership ready for a ceasefire deal that will undercut the red lines set in stone by Sinwar: an immediate end to the war and the total withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza in exchange for more hostage releases? Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, has his own red lines but they read very differently. He wants Hamas to lay down tits arms and surrender, and to free all the hostages, alive or dead. At this point there would appear to be no room for compromise on either side. But the dynamics of the war in Gaza have changed dramatically. Hamas is crushed, albeit with some resistance still evident, Hezbollah, its unfailing supporter, has suffered near-terminal blows to its leadership hierarchy from Israeli assassination airstrikes in Lebanon; and Iran, Machiavellian orchestrator of all things turbulent in the Middle East and Israel’s arch enemy, has learned on two separate occasions in the last six months that it lacks the capability to protect its military sites – and thus, potentially, its nuclear facilities – from Israeli long-range ballistic-missile airstrikes. However, will these critical setbacks for Iran and its proxy forces lead to a shift in strategy on the part of the so-called Tehran-led axis of resistance, offering hope of a ceasefire deal in both Gaza and Lebanon, or will it all spiral into an even more dangerous period in which the United States will be dragged into a full-scale regional war? It is these two alternative scenarios which are currently driving the key external players in this Middle East conflict – the US, Egypt and Qatar – to find a new formula that will raise prospects for an end to the fighting, or at least the release of all the remaining hostages. Ceasefire hopes have come and gone over the last 12 months since the Hamas atrocities committed in southern Israel on 7 October last year. In between the negotiations, mostly abortive, the casualty toll in both Gaza and Lebanon has continued to rise relentlessly., as Israel has pressed on with its mission, ordered by Netanyahu, to destroy Hamas and to deal a fatal blow to Hezbollah. Washington still wants a deal that will embrace far more than the release of hostages and a long-term ceasefire. Washington’s framework for peace in the Middle East includes the normalisation of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. However, after Israel’s retaliatory airstrikes on Iran on Saturday, Saudi Arabia put out a robust statement, condemning the attacks which it said constituted a “serious violation of Iran’s territory and contradicts established international norms and laws”. Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, who was in the Middle East last week, made it clear that the grand vision of a more comprehensive peace framework for the region remained a priority for Washington. If Kamala Harris wins the election next week, it is presumed she would wish to continue pursuing this strategic objective. Meanwhile, the immediate efforts are focusing on trying to persuade all parties to agree a ceasefire., however short-lived. There hasn’t been a ceasefire in Gaza since November when fighting stopped for seven days during which 105 hostages were freed in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. There was also a brief pause in fighting in June along a road in southern Gaza to allow for United Nations food trucks to enter safely. But it wasn’t a ceasefire. Fighting carried on elsewhere. For President Biden and his foreign policy legacy, any sort of ceasefire that raises hopes of a better and more far-reaching deal in the future, will be welcome news. He has less than three months left of his presidency, and the possibility of his successor being Donald Trump, not his vice president.

Trump or Harris, who will the undecided choose?

The US election result is going to come down to a few million voters who right now have still not made up their minds. It's that close. It seems extraordinary that there should be anyone left in the United States who has not definitely decided who to support. Can doubters really be considering Donald Trumpo, rather than Kamala Harris? If this is the case, then I think Trump will probably win. Because if they havc serious doubts whether Harris can be a strong president, they will ignore all the bad stuff and go for Trump as the big bloke who will tell America's enemies to go hang. Some of the undecided will still be unable to vote for Trump and will take the risk of voting for Harris even though she has not inspired them as a candidate. They would prefer to vote for her than join the noisy lot who bellow for Trump. But I suspect these undecided are in the minority. The rest of the undecided will take a deep breath and hope that Trump doesn't become the dictator that all the Democrats say he will become if he gets hold of the White House again. Yes, these doubters will risk voting for Trump because they don't want to risk voting for Harris.

Will Iran strike back?

Israel and Iran are still fighting a shadow war, delivering punishment from the skies but playing it all down. It's a bizzare and potentially dangerous game. Both Israel and Iran have warned of battles to the end but clearly don't mean it which is fortunate. Nevertheless the you-hit-me and I'll-hit-you confrontation going on is escalating bit by bit, until one day, the restraints will be off and one side or the other, probably Israel, will launch an attack that will do really serious damage, like blow up an oil installation, causing conflagration, or target the Supreme Leader in his weekend residence. On October 1`, Iran carried out a much bigger attack on Israel than it did in April which was the first time Tehran had directly hit Israel. Israel's response was limited and now in retaliation for October 1, its air force bombers have increased their payload and targets, delivering a less limited but still restrained attack. And so it goes on. Unless it doesn't. Tehran is playing down the latest Israeli attack and wise people are saying this probably means they are going to call a halt to the tit-for-tats for now and not respond this time. But many, more extreme voices in Tehran will be saying it's vital to respond to show that Iran will not be cowed by Israeli attacks. Saving face is always a crucial ingredient in this tit-for-tat game. But the ayatollahs in Tehran know that if they approve a bigger hit on Israel, as promised a few days ago, Israel will come back with something bigger, too. Then what? Then it could be a real war. It's all psychology, but highly dangerous psychology. Wrong judgments can so easily be made. In the end I suspect Iran will follow a wait-and-see policy because the regime knows there is one man they can rely on to urge restraint on the Israelis, and that's the man who will remain as president of the United States until Januarty 19, 2025, Joe Biden.

Is Benjamin Netanyahu waiting for the US election to be over before striking Iran?

Benjamin Netanyahu is still waiting to give the go ahead for Israel's retaliatory strike on Iran. There have been stories about Iran "bracing" for the expected attack for weeks. That's a lot of bracing. Perhaps that's one of the reasons why Netanyahu has held back from attacking Irainian targets, hoping that Iran will be caught napping. But I suspect the main reason why we have this delay is that Netanyahu has decided to wait until the election is over in the US on November 5. He probably wants Donald Trump to win because Trump has said Israel should be allowed to get on with the job of destroying Hamas etc and, as president, he would help him do it. And Netanyahu would prefer to have Trump as the elected president waiting to take over on January 20 next year than the vice president to Joe Biden who has caused him such grief over the last few months. That doesn't mean the strike against Iran will be delayed until November 6, although it's not out of the question. But Netanyahu nill be studying the polls to see whether there is going to be any firmer insight into who is going to win. Right now it's so close, no one can tell. But in the last two weeks, a lot of undecided people are going to make up their minds and that could change things a lot. My guess is that Netanyahu, canny politician that he is, will order a mighty bombing of Iran on November 4, the day before the US election, hoping the undecided will vote for Trump to stop the Third World War from breaking out. Kamala Harris might not know what the hell to do, and Joe Biden, in the final throes of his presidency, won't be able to do anything. Thus Trump wins and Netanyahu gets what he wants.

Is it Biden's fault that the world is now in such a dangerous state?

Some of Donald Trump's former officials, such as General John Kelly, his former chief of staff, are saying the ex-president is a Fascist and a danger man who never listens. But others, such as Robert O'Brien, his former national security adviser, are saying that under Trump the world was a safer place. No wars. No invasion of Ukraine. No Middle East war. And that under Biden, his cautious, weak approach had been exploited to the full by, first the Taleban, then Putin and Xi Zinping, and Iran and, basically anyone with a grudge against the US. This is too simplistic. Even though the president of the United States has always been and is today a key figure in the way the world works it's far less so now and increasingly less so because of new alliances being formed against American domination, notably the one forged by Putin with China, India, Brazil and South Africa and others. But O'Brien is sure that if Trump had been in the White House in the last four years, Putin would not have been tempted to invade Ukraine. He says, in a piece in The New York Times, that Putin went for Ukraine because he took comfort from the chaotic withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan under Biden's watch and thought he could get away with invading his neighbour without risking having a war with the US as a consequence. He was right. Biden sent billions and billions of dollars worth of weapons to Ukraine but made it clear from the start that he would never put American troops into Ukraine to fight Russian troops. Under the O'Brien thinking, Trump would have left that option in the air and it might have deterred Putin from invading at all. Who knows?