The fog of peace

In the rarefied realm of Trump's high-flying and enigmatic diplomacy, there exists an exquisitely simple, straightforward key to comprehension. About whatever he says, assume the Hegelian position of its antithesis.

About the Israeli cabinet’s war on Palestinians, “It’s peace in the Middle East” because “Phase 2 has started,” he said yesterday. It follows that its start would have had a beginning, and so the nations involved in Phase 2 would have known the when and where of their involvement. Such negotiating items are not diplomatic trivialities.

Nor are they matters of semantics. Phase 2 has started means something more profound than Phase 2 shall commence sometime, somewhere. That, however, is where the second phase stands. Doubtless, the nations then involved will meet, presumably all in the same place. But Trumpian terminology demands that has started means a non-actualization. And that's actually not a good start (if there were a start).

The American autocrat's idea of pellucid diplomacy is housed in the cinematic Nietzschean concept of The Triumph of the Will. That is to say, superhuman determination shall prevail. "It’s peace in the Middle East," says Trump. "It’s going to happen." To that we must apply not Friedrich Nietzsche, but Friedrich Hegel.

Trump delegates for a reason rather uncommon to diplomatic geniuses of his self-proclaimed sort: He knows nothing of what's happening, let alone what's going to happen. I suppose one could say that, to his credit, at least he knows, somewhere in the disintegrating corners of his spidery mind, that he knows not a damn thing and understands even less.

So he delegates. To achieve peace in the Middle East — that, by the way, being a done deal with the ceasefire, he said  — Trump has assigned former real estate developer Steve Witkoff as the special envoy.

Mr. Witkoff is also the special envoy to Vladimir Putin's Russia. Trump has acknowledged that the newbie diplomat "had no idea about Russia, had no idea about Putin too much, didn't know too much about politics." Nonetheless, Witkoff had "that quality" Trump desired in a negotiator with the Machiavellian Vladimir Putin. It seems that via the ceremonial act of a kingly sword landing on the knight's shoulders, Trump's triumphant will would be metaphysically transferred to Witkoff. It was. The envoy soon conceptualized The Travesty of Alaska.

Not that the knightly bungler had much to go on. Trump's even superer human Will tends to materialize in something less than Nietzschean ways. What, after all, was poor Steven to make of the king's resolute declaration in December that it was "stupid" of President Biden to permit Ukrainian missile attacks on Russia proper — "We’re just escalating this war and making it worse," he intoned — only to go all upside-down under the war's unchanged circumstances a few months later: "Crooked and grossly incompetent Joe Biden would not let Ukraine FIGHT BACK" by striking inside Russia.

Had Witkoff been on his envoyish toes as late as last month, he might have gleaned some useful notion about the diplomatic leadership and panoptic supervision under which he was to persevere in chats with Vladimir. For it came to be that 11 years, seven months and one day after the Russo-Ukrainian war began — such things do have a start — Trump announced on Truth Social that he had "[gotten] to know and fully understand the Ukraine/Russia Military and Economic situation."

When Trump espies the dark forces of public curiosity about his thinking on a given issue, his custom is to call the audible of letting us know "within two weeks" what his play will be. As but one sampling, in May Trump said he would know "within two weeks" whether Putin was sincere about a Ukrainian peace. What Trump really knows is that such remarks are mere ephemera; nothings soon to be forgotten. This time, somebody's forgetfulness failed. A befitting fortnight later, the somebody asked him again about Vlad's famous sincerity. Trump pumped and rebooted the audible: He'd let us know "in about two weeks."

I raise the topic of his 14-day stalls of nothingness-knowing to swing us back to the topic of "Phase 2 has started." Here we see a most peculiar instance of Trump having forgotten his go-to option regarding the profoundly nontrivial meaning of start's start. But as for our curiosity? It's OK. Not to wonder. We simply apply our first Friedrich: Has started means its antithesis.   

By extension, woe to the Trumpian corollary of "peace in the Middle East."

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Cross-posted in Substack.