That is what is in the offing, and soon, if evangelical boy wonder and Speaker Mike Johnson and his gang of Trumpists don't immediately appropriate $60 billion in missiles, ammunition, tanks, Bradley armored vehicles, and electronic materiel to bolster the exhausted supply coffers of the courageous Ukrainian military defenders. If Johnson continues to dither, it is time for Democratic Speaker-in-Waiting Hakeem Jeffries and his chief aide, Rep. Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, to take charge.
Johnson says, lamely, that he would really like to help Ukraine except for the political costs that he and his speakership might have to pay. Translation: the fate of Ukraine and the safety of its 37 million people depends on Johnson finding a convenient way to save his own skin, and his job. Perhaps Johnson noticed over the weekend that Ukraine lost more front-line ground to the Russians (who have ten times the manpower and ten times the munitions) and that Ukraine's electrical infrastructure was reduced to rubble by Russian drone and missile attacks against which Ukraine could not defend because of anti-aircraft missile shortages. Sen. Joseph McCarthy attacked the Democrats in the late 1940s and 1950s for "losing" China to Mao's Communists. Who is going to hold Republicans to account for "losing" Ukraine to Putin's revived Soviet onslaught?
Enough already! Jeffries needs to tell Johnson that the Democrats in Congress will vote to sustain his speakership if he merely puts the appropriation bill to a vote. There are sufficient Democratic and Republican votes to ensure passage, and hence to throw a critical lifeline to Ukraine. Jeffries might further tell Johnson that if Marjorie Taylor Greene and other Trumpers then try to remove Johnson as Speaker, the Democrats will vote to keep him. That is what the Democrats in the House of Representatives should have done when Speaker Kevin McCarthy was threatened last year with removal. By employing such leverage, the Democrats can keep even an evangelical Trumpist Speaker in line. Operant conditioning works! (They could also urge Johnson to reread Exodus and Corinthians II for inspiration.)
If Johnson refuses to accept a tossed lifeline, then Jeffries and Clark should employ the nuclear option: By persuading two House Republicans to switch sides, even just temporarily, Jeffries can become Speaker himself. The Republicans will lose a further member on April 19, too, making the nuclear option that much easier to deploy.
Something must give, and soon, for Ukraine has hardly any ammunition left, the forty-five promised F-16s will arrive only in May or June, and but a handful of Ukrainian pilots will be successfully trained on F-16s by then. Putin wants to commence an all-out offensive against Ukraine as soon spring mud turns into summery dryness -- within months. Do the American people and their elected representatives really want to abandon Ukraine and see Putin's tanks drive toward Kyiv? Once the defensive front breaks, Ukraine will be overrun.
This is a doom and gloom report because that is what is ahead of us, and because so many Congressional Republicans -- thanks entirely to Trump -- think that winning the presidential contest in November depends on preaching and living isolationism. A few Representatives even presumably believe in such a heads-in-the-sand policy, saying that it is more important to "fix" things at home rather than helping people overseas. They forget, or ignore, that every kilometer of Russian advance saved in Ukraine equals freedom in the rest of Europe, even in the U. S., and certainly in and for Taiwan.
Furthermore, once the funds are available, the Pentagon can begin to ramp up its deliveries of necessary weapons. And that will trigger the transfer of very long-range artillery from Germany, where Chancellor Olaf Scholz has been slow to commit his Taurus missile launchers to Ukraine. It will also enable the completion of an innovative effort by the Czech Republic to purchase ammunition from around the world to re-supply the Ukrainian gunners.
Germany's powerful Taurus -- a bunker-busting, terrain-hugging missile with a range of 500 kilometers (311 miles) that can fly below the radar of air defenses -- would enable Ukraine to target the Kerch Bridge over the Sea of Azov that separates Crimea from Russia. Or they could use it to rain attacks down on Russia itself (a danger that Scholz fears will infuriate Putin). None of the other available forms of artillery now in use in Ukraine can reach so far.
Note that Putin sells petroleum freely to India and China, and now transfers oil and military know-how to once derided and once sanctioned North Korea in exchange for vast numbers of clandestinely shipped shells for Russian guns. Do Congressional Republicans really want to be Kim Jong-un's poodles as well as Putin's?
It is going to be difficult to block the transfer of North Korean shells, just as it is hard to keep Iran from supply armed drones to Russia, but perhaps President Biden will want to devise a way short of but near to war to stop the North Koreans and Iranians from directly assisting Putin's war effort.
Doing something like that as cleverly or surreptitiously as possible would be much more easily accomplished if our own critical resupplying of the materiel of war were unblocked by the Republicans. It is well past time to persuade or steamroller the Republicans and Johnson. Congressional Democrats and the Biden administration must act now, at the eleventh hour.
So true, so wise, professor!
I might acknowledge one glimmer of hope I am planning to feature next weekend (that Johnson may actually like) .... seizure of frozen Russian assets that can be diverted to Ukraine...raises all sorts of possibilities ! (and cautionary tales of course!!)