Our melancholy scribe reflects on the bitter comedy now being played out in Ukraine

The novelist Graham Green’s novel The Quiet American explore the actions of a young CIA agent in Vietnam, and the tragedy that ensues due to his inexperience and trust in an unprincipled rebel general.

Swift was sadly reminded of this as he surveyed the activities of the Trump administration in Ukraine, and in particular the actions and words of one Steve Witkoff, the president’s special envoy to Russia and Ukraine (although he seems to be nearly 100% focused on Russia).

Witless Witkoff is not a professional diplomat. He is a property developer (does that ring any bells, dear readers?). Despite (presumably) picking up some business smarts on the way, he has emerged on the world stage with all the sophisticated cunning of an excited toddler.

In conversation with Tucker Carlson (the man, remember, who could not resist interviewing and agreeing with a total nutjob who argued that Winston Churchill was the ‘chief villain’ of WW2), Witkoff really came up with some zingers. Putin is not only, according to this eccentric envoy, not a bad guy, but ‘super smart’. Putin might indeed be the latter, but he would only need to be of moderate intelligence to hoodwink Witkoff.

Warming to his theme, Witkoff explained that Putin was ‘gracious’ and ‘straight up’, and in a climactic comedy moment, noted that Putin had prayed for Trump after the attempt on his life during the election campaign. Swift is fairly sure that Putin is not the praying type, dear readers, and if he does seek the assistance of the Almighty, it would probably be rather less selfless than that.

It is of course easy to mock Witkoff for the diplomatic ingénu he clearly is. But he is also dangerously stupid. He believes that the fake referendums organised by Russia to validate the seizure of Ukrainian territory are valid (they are not); that the root cause of the war is to redress unfairness in the allocation of territory (actually Russia invaded); that Ukraine is not a real country (Kremlin playbook again) etc. etc.

Swift is at a loss here. He understands that Trump wishes to achieve a quick settlement. He is said to desire the Nobel Peace Prize. Is the best way to achieve this to take Putin on trust, throw Ukraine to the wolves, and then be held up to obloquy when Putin invades again and reduces Ukraine to the serfdom it endured under Stalin (as would certainly happen if Ukraine disarms under Russian pressure)? Is it not better, as would be the case in a property deal, to take nothing on trust – to be the hardest of hard-nosed businessmen, to see Putin for the Russian nationalist he is?

Witkoff also took some time out to insult the UK, alleging that we were trying to act ‘like Winston Churchill’ (yes him again) by exploring the idea of a peace-keeping force to uphold a ceasefire. He was probably right that the idea was impractical, but his remark yet again revealed the deep American ignorance about WW2 (and Winston himself) which to them apparently began in 1941 when the US saved the world.

Swift’s injured patriotic pride leads him to point out that if the Japanese had not bombed Pearl Harbour we would have been left for a good few years to fight alone, having salready pent two years waiting for the Yanks to wake up.

Swift thinks it was Hegel or Marx who coined the aphorism, ‘History repeats itself, first as a tragedy, then as a farce’. Ukraine is enduring a tragedy, but Witkoff (and Trump) have turned its story into a farce.