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Analysis

Time for Zelensky to blink

For the sake of the world, no less, Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky needs to heed the events of Oct. 1962.

That’s when the Soviet Union and the United States came too close to nuclear war.

The United States considered it intolerable when it found Soviet missiles deployed in Cuba, 90 miles from Florida. Remove them, or prepare for retaliation.

Both sides were bloated with nuclear weapons. It was a time of advancing communism and when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev blustered, “We will bury you.”

At nearly the final moment. Khrushchev blinked, publicly.

United States president John F. Kennedy did likewise, secretly…removing US missiles from Turkey.

Kennedy won the high noon stare-down.

Nuclear Armageddon was averted. The planet was saved.

It’s time for Zelensky to blink.

This does not mean total surrender.

But it does mean that Putin needs a prize of some sort, even a part of Ukraine, before he goes literally ballistic.

The entire world would pay the price if, at the final curtain, Gog and Magog would mean Russia versus the United States.

Zelensky needs to keep that in mind. Ukraine would be a footnote if things keep going at the present rate.

As Bob Dylan would have it…in his ballad you masters of war…” you’re playing with my world.”

That’s Putin when he keeps playing the nuclear card. That’s Zelensky when he keeps saying that he will never meet with Putin and never negotiate with Putin.

Yes, Kennedy won over Khrushchev…or seemingly so. But the result came after a trade. I’ll give you Cuba; you give me Turkey.

Zelensky needs to consider and be open to such terms. It’s called diplomacy.

Then too, how much longer can the United States serve as Ukraine’s daddy through dollars and equipment?

What’s in it for us? Americans are asking. Biden’s support for Zelensky is not an answer. It is a problem. Biden has been wrong about everything.

The situation is already a quagmire, and we know how it went when the United States invested itself so fully for Vietnam. …first through “advisers,” then 58,220 US fatal casualties.

In fact, now the conflict is not about two countries, but two men, Putin versus Zelensky. Yes, Putin is the bad guy. But he is not a wanna-be Hitler. He is a wanna-be Stalin.

As for Israel, Zelensky complains that the Jewish State has not been doing enough to help him.

Number one…Israel has been doing what it can, but has its own battles to fight, namely, at the moment, Hezbollah/Lebanon.

Number two…Israel cannot afford to lose Russia, which is, and always will be, a player.

(Today, for the first time as Israel’s prime minister, Yair Lapid has condemned Russia for its attacks on civilian targets.)

We don’t know to what degree Putin is trigger happy. But keep poking the Russian Bear and something awful is bound to happen.

Hours ago, Putin escalated with a barrage of missile strikes. Putin’s vengeance, the headlines say…or just a taste of what’s to come?

It is admirable that Zelensky keeps fighting, …but to what end? This can’t end well…not when it’s all or nothing for both sides.

Khrushchev backed off. Will Putin? He’s stuck in a war that was supposed to be a rollover. Now, humiliated, he needs to save face.

Anything is possible when a madman is cornered…underlined when the madman says, “I am not bluffing.”

Neither was Khrushchev. He was contemptuous of Kennedy. He thought him “too intelligent” and “too weak.”

Fast forward and that is Putin’s view of Joe Biden, though scratch the “intelligent” part so far as Joe. The “weak” part stays.

Biden’s Afghanistan was Kennedy’s Bay of Pigs. In each case, leadership on trembling knees. Bay of Pigs, April 17, 1961, was an amateurish attempt to eliminate Castro. Cuban exiles, poorly trained, ill-equipped, set off on a fool’s errand. Older Americans maintained that nothing so half-baked would have happened under Eisenhower.

But Kennedy was no Biden. He kept learning and grew tougher against communism. This was the Age of Aquarius, the Days of Camelot. The Cold War be damned.

The year 1962 was the best of times and the worst of times. How so?

Under Kennedy, America was in a mood to frolic. Kennedy set the tone through perceived youthfulness and vigor…or “vigah.”

Fitness was the craze, the Peace Corps was launched, Bob Dylan rivaled Sinatra, Jackie Kennedy set the style, Elvis was king, and frolic we did.

While we twirled with hula hoops, Walter Cronkite was warning that a dark hour was looming due to the Cuban Missile Crisis. (This book tells the 1960s in full.)

While we danced with Dick Clark on American Bandstand, we were advised to start building bomb shelters.

All that was due to a misunderstanding. On April, 17, 1961, Khrushchev and Kennedy held a summit in Vienna. Khrushchev took the measure of his opponent and found him lacking; easy to push around.

Khrushchev laughed off the consequences of nuclear war, saying that even if millions were incinerated, he’d be happy to pay the price so long as communism prevailed.

Kennedy returned crushed, a defeated man…but when a year later the Soviet strongman tested him on Cuba, Kennedy was reinvigorated and equal to the task.

Biden?

The day may come when Biden will have to face a real decision, rather than run and hide in Delaware…if Zelensky keeps pushing to the brink.

Source: Jack Engelhard – Arutz Sheva