by M. K. BHADRAKUMAR

Happy hour: US President Biden (R) meets with Ukraine President  Zelensky in the Oval Office, Washington, September 2011

What was the need for all that happened in the period since mid-December when Russia transmitted to Washington its demands for security guarantee? This question will haunt US president Joe Biden long after he retires from public life. The foreign policy legacy of his presidency and the reputation of this much-vaunted 80-year old politician with a half-century’s record in public life, much of it supposedly in the domain of American foreign policy are in tatters — irreparable.

News has appeared that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has conceded that he willing to concede to the Russian demand that his country will not seek to become a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation! The announcement came in an interview with the ABC News where he revealed that he is no longer pressing for Ukraine’s Nato membership!

In fact, Zelensky lets the cat out of the bag by casually adding, “I have cooled down regarding this question a long time ago after we understood that… Nato is not prepared to accept Ukraine.”

Zelensky explains why: “The alliance is afraid of controversial things, and confrontation with Russia.”

This comes after his earlier revelation that he is “open to compromise” on the sovereignty of the two breakaway republics of  Lugansk and Donetsk in the eastern Donbass region and on the status of Crimea.

The ABC News reportedly telecast the interview on Monday night Eastern Time. Since then, the duo in the Biden team who piloted the Ukraine strategy, those apocalyptic “sanctions from hell” and the demonisation of Vladimir Putin through the recent months — Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Undersecretary of State Victoria — are nowhere to be seen.

That duo of East European descent in the driving seat — Blinken driving and Nuland by his side navigating him — ought to offer and explanation for all this charade playing out, which is virtually demolishing the American prestige as a superpower.

Questions are galore:

Principally, if it is so easy to work out a compromise over Russia’s legitimate security demands, especially regarding Ukraine’s Nato membership and the alliance’s further expansion, why was Biden so very stubborn in his refusal to even discuss it, given the urgency of the matter?

Can it be that Biden was acting smart to create a fait accompli for Russia at the forthcoming Nato summit on June 29-30 in Madrid?

What’s the need to destabilise the European economies and rock the world oil market at a  juncture when most economies are entering on a path of post-pandemic economic recovery?

What explains this unnatural obsession on the part of Biden over Ukraine’s regime?

Why such visceral hatred on Biden’s part toward Russia — and Putin personally, something unworthy of a world statesman?

Why is it that the economic war against Russia has become such a very personal affair for Biden, as his White House speech in Tuesday shows?

But such an ignominious end to this entire episode over Ukraine’s Nato membership was entirely to be anticipated. Fundamentally, this is an existential issue for Russia. Whereas, Biden, Blinken and Nuland are dilettantes sitting 10000 kms away indulging in old neocon pastimes of interfering in other countries’ internal affairs, threatening them, disciplining them or punishing them for defying America’s diktat.

Even after Zelensky spoke, what has been Biden’s reaction? He scheduled a speech to announce that the US shall no longer import oil from Russia. Shouldn’t he have heaved a sigh of relief that this war in Ukraine is petering out?

Instead, he resorted to this strange toothless measure to impress the  American audience that he is still on a winning streak and is giving hell to Putin. Isn’t this gimmick, actuality, an insult to the gullible American public?

Biden took this brave new step after Europeans told him plainly that they are not interested in such a move against Russia, given their heavy reliance on Russian oil.

Second, Biden doesn’t seem to know or has obfuscated the plain ruth that America is shooting at its own feet. For, Russian prices are highly competitive and American companies will now have to pay more to source such heavy grade oil.

Biden already swallowed his pride to send a high-level team of officials to Venezuela, a country under crippling US sanctions, to beg for oil from President Nicolas Maduro (who was on the CIA hit list not too long ago for being a socialist) to replace the Russian oil.

Maduro apparently sent them back to first ponder over the efficacy of a mutually beneficial relationship between his country and America.

All this drama took place in broad daylight witnessed by the entire Western Hemisphere. Wouldn’t they be thinking that America’s president is a man of straw?

Biden claimed he is making sure that Putin won’t have money for his “war machine” if America stops buying oil from Russia. This is laughable, bordering on a lie.

The US was purchasing about 12% of Russia’s total oil exports. That is an impressive figure. But, is it that Russia won’t have any other buyers in a world market where oil price has soared to $130 per barrel (thanks to Biden’s “sanctions from hell” against Russia)?

Surely, any number of potential buyers would queue up if Russia were to offer competitive prices (as it had been offering the US) to divert the extra stocks due to Biden’s boycott.

Surely, Biden can’t be unaware that Russia’s current budget is balanced on the belief that oil prices would be around $40-45 per barrel. With the current level of oil price, Russia is actually making a fortune! And the funny part is that Biden has facilitated it unknowingly!

Fundamentally, the problem today is that the American elite are delusional. While the rest of the world knows that in a multipolar world, the US’ capacity to force its will on other countries is inexorably in decline, the American elite shut their eyes to that reality. The present ridiculous situation happened largely due to this “unipolar predicament.”

The strategic defeat that Putin has inflicted on the Biden administration will dent the US prestige worldwide, weaken its transatlantic leadership, unravel its Indo-Pacific strategy and accelerate the drain of American influence in the 21st century. .