Is it Steve Witkoff’s turn to be sacked after Mike Waltz

After the sacking of Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff in February and nominating a political appointee retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Dan Caine as chairman, currently the most powerful general in United States military hierarchy is Gen. Alexus the Grynch, who is simultaneously wearing three hats: as combatant commander EUROCOM; as ex officio SACEUR, an acronym for Supreme Allied Commander Europe since World War II; and as NATO’s top general by virtue of being de facto head of NATO’s military committee, comprising all 32 Chiefs of Defense of the transatlantic alliance.

Thus Gen. Grynch has the effective authority to make or break Ukraine peace deal, not the commander-in-chief who is being tactfully hoodwinked by Pentagon’s top brass. Not surprisingly, Gen Grynch is pushing Keith Kellogg’s Ukraine peace plan, asking for deployment of NATO’s peacekeeping force in Ukraine.

Mr. Kellogg is a retired general embodying deep state logic. He has already been effectively replaced by Mr. Trump’s close confidant Mr. Witkoff as de facto special envoy for Ukraine, who should be credited for arranging the historic Alaska summit. The irony is that Mr. Kellogg’s so-called peace plan was crafted not by him but by Gen. Grynch’s predecessor Gen. Cavoli who served as chief architect of Ukraine’s proxy war under Gens. Mark Milley and CQ Brown.

The central rationale of Kremlin’s vehement opposition to Ukraine’s NATO membership is that it comes with inherent right of deployment of NATO troops and military assets in member state. Now if NATO’s peacekeeping force is deployed in Ukraine, with or without Ukraine’s NATO membership, it essentially means the same thing.

Kremlin would never allow the deployment of NATO troops in Ukraine right next to Russia’s western borders come what may. How would United States react if Russia deploys troops and military assets in Cuba or Venezuela a stone’s throw from maritime borders of United States?

What the Russian delegation understood by “security guarantees for Ukraine” was that Ukraine could have NATO’s Article 5-style collective defense treaties with European states that they could provide military support to Ukraine if it is invaded by a hostile power.

Ukraine has a capable and organized military force that has quite effectively been defending the country in the Russo-Ukraine War for over three years. It’s not some backward African country needing peacekeeping force for maintaining law and order. Therefore it doesn’t need the deployment of NATO troops on its soil, which is clearly a deal breaker.

Even an incorrigible hawk blinded by lust for blood, such as John Bolton and Lindsey Graham, would tell readers that confidence-building measures are essential for any peace deal to succeed. Cavalierly flouting the serendipitous peace process that began after the historic Alaska summit, however, Ukraine mounted a brazen airstrike on Russia on the Independence Day on August 24, deploying 95 drones that struck the Kursk nuclear power plant forcing a 50% reduction in the operating capacity of a reactor.

In addition, Ukrainian drones were intercepted across more than a dozen Russian regions, also causing a massive blaze at a large fuel export terminal at the port of Ust-Luga in Russia’s Leningrad region. But not a word was spoken about Ukraine’s deliberate provocation scuttling the nascent peace process by establishment media, in fact many European diplomats lauded Ukraine’s audacity in mounting the drone strike on Russia on the Independence Day.

But as soon as Russia responded with retaliatory strikes yesterday, dubbed the largest airstrike in history since Nazi Germany’s Luftwaffe attack in the Battle of Britain during World War II, the chorus of European lickspittles chimed in, even though the lead American vocalist hasn’t delivered the opening lines yet, shedding crocodile tears over minor damage to irreplaceable archaeological monuments of British Council and European consulate.

What’s even more surprising is that today Reuters picked up an Onion’s risible anecdote and made it an exclusive report that Mr. Witkoff misunderstood Mr. Putin’s terms for ending the Ukraine War. I wonder why credits weren’t given to the Onion that conjured up the hilarious scoop, or to the Daily Mail and the rest of tabloids that first published the comical spoof on August 10. I considered Reuters to be a relatively credible news outlet, but it has proved that in the desperation to thwart Ukraine’s peace process, it could stoop as low as security establishment’s mouthpieces, Times, Post and Journal.

What Mr. Putin precisely proposed to Mr. Trump’s trusted confidant and seasoned real estate attorney and dealmaker Mr. Witkoff in the August 6 meeting in Moscow was that if Ukraine agreed to withdraw from the eastern Donetsk region, Russia would freeze the frontlines in the southern regions of Kherson and Zaporizhia, in addition Russia would also be prepared to return tracts of Ukrainian land it had occupied in the northern Sumy and northeastern Kharkiv regions. That’s what Mr. Trump had in mind when he alluded to land swapping in Ukraine, and these proposals have now been enshrined in the Ukraine peace process after the momentous Alaska summit.

Predictably, Politico and Reuters have simultaneously published the Onion’s risible spoof that Mr. Witkoff misunderstood Mr. Putin’s terms for ending the Ukraine War, and the rest of mainstream news outlets might soon follow the suit. In fact, there’s no new revelation in the fabricated report as the Daily Mail and other tabloids first published the ludicrous news on August 10, but little attention was paid to it three weeks ago.

Clearly, the security establishment back then didn’t want to spoil President Trump’s summit with Mr. Putin scheduled in Alaska on August 15, therefore a gag order was issued to establishment media about reporting on the story. But after Ukraine and Russia’s tit-for-tat airstrikes against each other, beginning on the Independence Day of Ukraine on August 24, spelling an abysmal end to Ukraine peace process that began after the Alaska summit, the deep state appears to have issued fresh instructions to mainstream news outlets of filling old wine in new bottles in order to mount a smear campaign against Mr. Witkoff for arranging the historic Alaska summit.

It’s worth recalling that similarly in March, the Atlantic’s editor Jeffrey Goldberg was the central figure in Signalgate scandal, after which Mike Waltz was sacked as NSA. Although a former special forces officer, Mr. Waltz ran afoul of deep state after he met Russian delegation headed by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on February 18, alongside Marco Rubio and Steve Witkoff.

That meeting was meant to pave the way for a summit between Trump and Putin. After the talks ended, Waltz said he thought the summit could be arranged in the coming weeks. Thus, Mr. Waltz ruffled the feathers in security establishment by actively working to arrange a meeting between US and Russian leaders.

This transgression was deemed a sacrilegious assault on national security domain. No wonder deep state assigned the task of doing a hit job on Mr. Waltz to its trusted and most experienced operative, Mr. Deep Throat of Watergate fame, who artfully hatched the plot to kick Mr. Waltz out from key NATSEC appointment.

After Mr. Waltz, it is now Mr. Witkoff’s turn. The score is now two down, one more to go. Let’s see for how long anti-establishment Team Trump could stick together. But I’d still bet on Mr. President’s characteristic determination and defiance against the odds.