Last week, a 28-point “peace plan” for the Russia-Ukraine war surfaced. It was apparently fleshed out in Miami over cocktails by President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and Witkoff’s Russian counterpart Kirill Dmitriev.
Many critics immediately derided it as a “Russian wish-list.”
That was before we discovered that the version which was leaked – probably by Dmitriev – had literally been poorly translated from Russian. In a closed-door session with senators, Secretary of State Marco Rubio even described it as a “wish-list for the Russians” and “not the administration’s plan.” On his way to Geneva for peace talks, Rubio scrambled to deny he ever said that.
But all of that is apparently moot now. What seems to have happened, amid all the chaos, is that Rubio had pried the Ukraine portfolio away from Witkoff. By Tuesday, Rubio revealed there is a whole new plan anyway.
This is good news, because the original plan wasn’t in America’s best interest.
I believe American foreign policy should put America first. But I don’t subscribe to “America First” foreign policy, because that’s a label slapped on anything Trump wants, whether it’s in his personal interest or the country’s.
People who embrace the slogan “America First” generally believe that helping Ukraine isn’t in America’s interest. I think they’re wrong.
Because Vladimir Putin’s Russia is America’s enemy.
This isn’t nearly as controversial as you might think if you only get foreign policy analysis from MAGA influencers on social media. Russia allies itself with our adversaries, in China, the Americas and the Middle East. This policy is deeply rooted in Russian history and in President Putin’s nostalgia for Russian “greatness.” But if it matters, there’s also a doctrine behind it, the Primakov Doctrine, which holds that Russia should do everything it can to constrain and contain America and NATO.
Russia has been mucking about in the internal affairs of the U.S. and its allies for nearly a century. In recent years it allegedly tampered with electricity grids, elections and cyber systems. It funded psyop campaigns– using useful idiot influencers and willing volunteers alike – to pump racism, antisemitism and sinister conspiracy theories into domestic politics here and abroad. “The Russian Federation is the most significant and direct threat to Allies’ security and to peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area,” according to NATO.
If you’re of a more idealistic bent, Russia is also a murderous authoritarian regime that oppresses its own people and visits heinous war crimes on its neighbors.
In short: They’re the bad guys.
That’s why there’s a compelling moral argument for helping Ukraine resist a lawless and brutal invasion that has taken perhaps a million lives and resulted in the kidnapping of tens of thousands of Ukrainian children to be brainwashed. Our national honor is on the line as well, given that America encouraged Ukraine to give up its nuclear weapons in exchange for “security assurances” in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. Legally, assurances aren’t “guarantees,” but they’re not nothing either.
Put morality and national honor aside. A cold-eyed, America-First strategist might argue that the slaughter of Ukrainian troops – and civilians – is in our interest if it comes at the cost of bleeding Russia’s military, economy and global prestige.
No, we shouldn’t send American troops to fight Russia. That is a strawman raised by opponents of helping Ukraine at all. But weapons? Intelligence? Why not? Many of NATO’s weapons were built for the purpose of fighting Russia. If Ukraine can use them to that end, it’s the best of both worlds. This leaves out that we can – and do – sell many of these weapons, either to Ukraine or our European allies who then transfer them.
And it’s been working. Russia didn’t have the bandwidth to save its puppet regime in Syria. It didn’t – couldn’t – ride to the rescue of Iran, Hamas or Hezbollah either. The Russian economy is a mess, with near double-digit inflation despite insanely high interest rates.
And yet, this original “peace deal” would rescue Russia, ceding it territory, including all of the Donbas, that it hasn’t been able to win militarily. It would provide Russia sanctions relief, invite it back into the G8 and hobble Ukraine militarily and politically. It describes America as a “mediator” between Russia and NATO, despite the fact that NATO is an alliance created and led by America. There is no greater strategic goal for Russia than dividing America from her NATO allies. All of this in exchange for the “expectation” that Russia wouldn’t invade Ukraine again later.
Hopefully, Rubio has come up with something more in America’s interest, and less in Russia’s.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.