Basking In Success

QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President-elect.

On that intelligence report, the second part of their conclusion was that Vladimir Putin ordered it because he aspired to help you in the election.

Do you accept that part of the finding? And will you undo what President Obama did to punish the Russians for this or will you keep it in place?

TRUMP: Well, if — if Putin likes Donald Trump, I consider that an asset, not a liability, because we have a horrible relationship with Russia. Russia can help us fight ISIS, which, by the way, is, number one, tricky. I mean if you look, this administration created ISIS by leaving at the wrong time. The void was created, ISIS was formed.

If Putin likes Donald Trump, guess what, folks? That’s called an asset, not a liability.

Now, I don’t know that I’m gonna get along with Vladimir Putin. I hope I do. But there’s a good chance I won’t. And if I don’t, do you honestly believe that Hillary would be tougher on Putin than me? Does anybody in this room really believe that? Give me a break.

OK?

January 11, 2017

Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump were hopeful they could reset relations between the countries. (Joshua Roberts/Alexei Druzhinin/Kremlin via Reuters)

"I want to thank him because we're trying to cut down our payroll, and as far as I'm concerned I'm very thankful that he let go a large number of people [755 American diplomats out of a total of one thousand to be expelled from Russia in retaliation for the latest sanctions that Trump reluctantly signed off on, as a result of Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election] because now we have a smaller payroll."

"There's no real reason for them to go back. I greatly appreciate the fact that we've been able to cut our payroll of the United States. We're going to save a lot of money."

Droll statement by U.S. President Donald Trump

In the tradition of the best laid plans of mice and men this one took no time heading astray. That is, if we are to take at face value -- and we should -- that skulduggery in cyber espionage was launched by Moscow to interfere with the outcome of the American presidential election, with a view to manoeuvring the electorate somehow to reject the Democratic candidate through releasing damaging data and emails that would further demolish Hillary Clinton's run for the presidency. With the idea on the part of Vladimir Putin that Donald Trump would be even more malleable than his predecessor.

Unfortunately the too-clever Vladimir Putin's clumsy calling cards made it all-too-evident that he was inextricably linked to the intrigue that may have had a hand in delivering the White House to the Republicans to place the presidency in the hands of a man who had expressed a rather friendly attitude to Russia and Putin in particular. Russian President Vladimir V. Putin is a master manipulator. He is also a man who rabidly reacts to anyone standing in the way of his achieving any of his goals.

It's not quite possible to ask the opinion of those challengers who piqued Mr. Putin's anger by their inconvenient and outrageous protests against Putin's increasingly autocratic measures and his success in persuading ordinary Russians that he is a strongman they fervently wished to maintain in power forevermore, simply because they all, politicians, former colleagues, journalists, met untimely and most unfortunate deaths. The message is clear; to cross Vladimir Putin is to foolishly sign one's own death warrant. 

And moving to another country for haven and security is no guarantee of safety since distance hardly acts as an impediment to assassination whether by stealth betraying foolish trust, as with polonium poisoning or by being shot a point-blank range, in the back of the head, a stone's throw distance from the Kremlin on a dark and beautiful summer evening.

The stakes were high; the potential for 'restoring' U.S.-Russian relations which had deteriorated so badly as a result of naive misunderstanding on the part of the United States. Russia's affairs in Georgia and Ukraine, in Eastern Europe altogether and in Syria are Russia's affairs alone. That the U.S. led an effective sanctions campaign resulting from the annexation of Crimea and the incitement of ethnic Russian Ukrainians to own eastern Ukraine represented an error in judgement, which Putin felt could be turned around through chummy relations with a man after his own dark heart.

Unfortunately, Mr. Putin's own clumsy manoeuvring left too many clues readily decipherable by American investigators and now those are aspirations that moulder in the shadows of unrequited overtures to heal wounded relations. Both houses of Congress overwhelmed the possibility of a presidential veto when with 522 votes cast for sanctions against Russia to be enhanced, only five votes registered as opposed.  And nor is the crisis in the White House over the Russia file eased with the impanelling of a grand jury.

Vladimir Putin, that crafty, morally challenged, full-on-corrupt czar simply outwitted himself. Managing through his imagined window of opportunity to somewhat permanently deep-chill a relationship that was on the brink of sliding over a cliff at the outset.

The Russian president rides a motorbike with The Night Wolves biker gang Getty