Risk-averse Antony Blinken is verging on the delusional
Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy will undoubtedly once more appeal to his allies to be able to strike deep inside Russian territory, an appeal Mr Blinken will have to carry back to the US and one that requires a concise answer: yes or no.
The use of sanctions failed to deter Russia from invading Ukraine and failed to persuade Moscow to end it – and yet despite one of the most dramatic escalations in this conflict so far, the West is just issuing more of them, and limited ones at that.
This as the war is turning in Russia’s favour again, though you wouldn’t believe it from the conduct of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during his visit to London.
Russian forces are closing in on Pokrovsk, a key transport hub. Losing it could lose Ukraine the entire Donetsk region.
That is one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s key war aims.
But asked by Sky’s Yalda Hakim about the possibility of the city falling, America’s top diplomat gave an answer that was a study in looking on the bright side. Its final thought verged on the delusional.
“Ukraine is on a trajectory to succeed,” he said, and added that “that would be the strongest possible rebuke to Vladimir Putin”.
Ukraine is not on a trajectory to succeed currently even if Mr Blinken believes success “fundamentally will come”.
As the secretary of state stood alongside Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy, he confirmed the news Ukraine has been dreading – a development that makes matters potentially much worse.
At a press conference earlier in the day Mr Blinken announced the US believes the Russian military has received shipments of Iranian short-range Fatah-360 ballistic missiles and “will likely use them within weeks in Ukraine”.
This is a serious step up in the war that has been raging for two and a half years.
And despite Mr Blinken saying President Joe Biden is “not ruling out” allowing Ukraine to fire Western missiles deep into Russian territory, he is likely to be criticised for not already allowing the Ukrainian forces to carry out such attacks.
Mr Blinken says he will listen intently to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the upcoming trip to Ukraine.
The Ukrainian leader will undoubtedly once more appeal to his allies to be able to strike deep inside Russian territory, an appeal Mr Blinken will have to carry back to the US and one that requires a concise answer: yes or no.
Over the weekend the head of the CIA Bill Burns warned that when Iran started supplying ballistic missiles it would be a “dramatic escalation“.
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It is now happening but the response has been anything but.
Iran Airs’ ability to fly into the UK will be “limited”. Three Iranian officials who are unlikely to have assets in the West and little ambition to travel here face asset freezes and travel bans.
And five Russian ships will be sanctioned. There are of course plenty more where they came from.
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None of this is likely to be much of a deterrence to Iran becoming more involved in the conflict and it will not send a warning to either North Korea or China who are also aiding and abetting Moscow in its illegal land grab in Ukraine.
There was an element of wishful thinking in the secretary of state’s comments on the Middle East too.
As Hakim pointed out there is very little optimism in Israel among commentators and politicians there of any stripe about the chances of Mr Blinken’s ceasefire deal succeeding. That is a statement of fact.
And yet both Messrs Blinken and Lammy insist the deal is 90% done.
It was this answer, though, that will strike observers in the Middle East as the most disingenuous.
“In the democratic system, leaders make decisions, and they have to be responsive to their people, and they have to be responsive to the interests of their country. We can’t compel anyone to do that.”
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Mr Blinken knows very well that American diplomacy has more weight than that in Israel.
Even the threat of the US president publicly calling out Benjamin Netanyahu for dragging his feet in these negotiations could shift the diplomacy at a crucial moment.
There are of course other forces at work just two months from a US election.
The US president can ill afford a confrontation with the Israeli prime minister, just as he can ill afford an escalation in Ukraine so soon before America goes to vote.
That may be tying his chief diplomat’s hands. For whatever reason, critics will say his diplomacy is in danger of seeming supine and risk-averse and in neither conflict on the front foot.
