OPINION:
Timing is critical in both statecraft and diplomacy, but President Trump couldn’t have chosen a worse time to honor Russian dictator Vladimir Putin with a high-level, one-on-one meeting.
And not just a meeting at some neutral location, but a prestigious get-together within the White House — once reserved for America’s closest and most respected allies and world leaders.
Mr. Putin just won a fourth term in office in what was widely considered a “sham” election, shortly after Moscow was publicly blamed by British Prime Minister Theresa May for the poisoning of a former Russian double-agent spy and his daughter who had taken refuge in the U.K.
The Iron Lady called the attack with a lethal nerve agent a “reckless and despicable act,” adding that it was “highly likely” ordered by the Kremlin that Mr. Putin rules with an iron fist.
The Kremlin has denied it played any role in the attack, and, presumably, Mr. Trump believes that. Still, he has yet to condemn the act, even though the U.S. has joined the U.K. in the expulsion of dozens of Russian diplomats.
But there are other reasons why Mr. Putin should not be accorded America’s hospitality and the respect that comes with being invited to the White House.
He is the cold-blooded architect of Moscow’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula in Ukraine where Russian troops are still plotting to seize the rest of the country.
Russian war planes have also been bombing civilians in Syria in an effort by Mr. Putin to keep its blood thirsty dictator, Bashar Assad, in power.
And Mr. Trump has been all but silent in the face of Mr. Putin’s relentless interference in the 2016 presidential election in an unprecedented cyberwar offensive that’s been carpet bombing the U.S. Internet with political lies and countless fake news stories to divide, anger, and fool America’s electorate.
The president had been coy about the possibility of a meeting at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and who may have initiated the invitation. But that charade ended Monday when it was confirmed that Mr. Trump invited Mr. Putin to the White House in a March 20 phone call.
The disclosure came not from the White House press office, but from a Kremlin official, Yury Ushakov, in remarks to a group of Russian journalists, according to the state news agency RIA Novosti.
“When our presidents spoke on the phone, it was Mr. Trump who proposed holding the first meeting in Washington, in the White House,” Mr. Ushakov said.
That was the now infamous phone call in which Mr. Trump, against the advice of his advisers who urged him in a briefing paper to condemn the poisoning plot, and further advised, “DO NOT CONGRATULATE” Mr. Putin for winning the election, according to officials familiar with the call, The Washington Post reported.
Mr. Trump dismissed that advice out of hand, firing back on Twitter, “Getting along with Russia (and others) is a good thing, not a bad thing.”
But top foreign policy experts were aghast at Mr. Trump’s tweet and his decision to accord Mr. Putin the kind of special, blue ribbon treatment he doesn’t deserve.
“Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? It’s really mind-boggling,” Leon Aron, a resident scholar and the director of Russian studies at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, told The Post. “I’m usually not this emotional.”
Alina Polyakov, a fellow at the liberal Brookings Institution, said Mr. Trump doesn’t seem to comprehend the policy implications of his actions. “He tends to extend these invitations to the White House like it’s an invitation to dinner.”
What does Mr. Trump see in Mr. Putin that makes him believe he can trust the once Communist KGB agent? None of our major European allies have accorded him the royal treatment that our president now intends to bestow upon him.
To the contrary, they, like Theresa May, harbor deep suspicions of his venal, foreign policy motives, his dream of reclaiming parts of the former Soviet Union, and supporting some the most despotic, terrorist villains in the Middle East.
Mr. Putin’s namesake, Vladimir Lenin, had a favorite proverb, “doveryai, no proveryai” — “trust, but verify” — that President Reagan embraced in his successful, nuclear arms treaty negotiations with Mikhail Gorbachev.
But President Trump doesn’t seem capable of understanding that there’s nothing in Mr. Putin’s devious, war-like, anti-democratic behavior that any American president can ever trust.
• Donald Lambro is a syndicated columnist and contributor to The Washington Times.
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