Damned are the peace-fakers

For they shall be called Manny Macron, to complete this, possibly blasphemous, bowdlerisation of the Beatitudes.

With his mind’s eye, Manny sees a picture that escapes everyone else: himself as a world leader. This reminds me of Schopenhauer’s epigram on the difference between talent and genius: “Talent hits the target no one else can hit. Genius hits the target no one else can see.”

Manny, alas, is no genius. His problem is that no one else can see his target because it’s not there. That makes everyone else sane and him deluded.

Since the beginning of Russia’s bandit raid on the Ukraine, Manny has felt the urge to talk to Putin. Now, if it’s true that Vlad is seriously ill, those chinwag sessions must have relieved his suffering. A good laugh is known to have that effect.

According to Manny, he told Putin the attack on the Ukraine was a “fundamental error”. Quite. So was the Nazi genocide of Jews.

The difference between a fundamental error and mass murder shouldn’t be lost on anyone with a modicum of intelligence and moral sense. Once grasped, that difference should determine a proper response.

One can talk to a mistaken man, helping him correct his error. But one shouldn’t talk to a mass murderer in the act. One should stop him by every available means.

Putting this thought in the French context, Charles Martel didn’t try to talk to Abd al-Rahman al-Ghafidi in 732. Daladier did try to talk to Hitler in 1938. That simple comparison ought to have taught Manny a useful lesson. If it hasn’t, his teacher cum foster mother Brigitte has her work cut out for her.

Every pursuit of fake political goals comes enveloped in mendacious jargon. Thus the toxic gas of appeasement wafting through France and Germany is masked by cant, along the lines of the imperative to “save Putin’s face” and “avoid humiliating him”.

Manny keeps banging out that tune with the persistence of a maniac. To wit: “I am convinced that it is France’s role to be a mediating power. We must not humiliate Russia so that the day when the fighting stops we can build an exit ramp through diplomatic means.”

If he means that every war sooner or later ends in a peace treaty, then this is a truism not worth saying. But peace treaties differ: some are signed by a Pétain, some by an Eisenhower.

If he means that, once the shooting has stopped, business with Putin can go back to normal, then this is inanity blended with immorality.

If he means that France (also implicitly Germany and conceivably the US) can twist the Ukraine’s arm into trading territory for the dubious privilege of effectively becoming Russia’s dependency, then this plan is both criminal and unrealistic.

It’s impossible to humiliate Putin more than he has already humiliated himself and his country. His bloated face is beyond saving – it can only be bashed in.

The Ukrainians are doing just that and, when the heavy weaponry promised by the West finally arrives, they’ll have the proverbial tools to finish the job. That’s the only possible scenario for peace: driving the Russians back to the line of 23 February at least, to the pre-2014 borders ideally.

This plot can only be realised through the denouement of sweeping political changes in Russia, the ousting of Putin and repudiation of Putinism, followed by a real, not fake, peace treaty.

Any other “exit ramp” would be a springboard to hell. For, even if the West complies with Manny’s innermost wishes and stops arms supplies to the Ukraine, the war will never stop.

The Russians may occupy the country or a large part of it. But Ukrainians will continue to fight the way they fought against the Soviets throughout the 1950s: as guerrillas. Except that this time they’ll fight as a united nation, not as small units of partisans. And they will be much better armed.

During the Nazi occupation of France, less than one per cent of the population joined the resistance, but they still hurt the German war effort, especially towards the end. In the Ukraine, resistance will bring together the whole population.

Russian soldiers will be killed with sniper fire, Russian trains will be derailed, Russian fuel depots will be blown up, terrorist acts will strike Moscow and Petersburg. The Russians will respond the only way they know how: with genocidal atrocities.

The Ukraine will be drenched in gushing blood, and then the flood will spill over to Poland, Moldova, the Baltics – and tomorrow the world, to quote Putin’s apparent role model, Hitler.

Manny refuses to understand this because he suffers from a dual condition: delusions of grandeur and cowardice.

The former makes him believe that France can be cast in the role of peace-maker, rather than simply a loyal Nato member, doing all she can to stop the spread of Russian fascism. This is a woeful misapprehension, considering France’s present ranking in the world power stakes.

The latter makes him fear Putin’s retaliation with big bombs. Putin is doing his level best stoking up such fears among those who scare easily.

He once compared himself and Russia to a rat that has to lash out when cornered. (A note to Vlad: try to compare yourself to more flattering animals. May I suggest a simile involving not small rodents but large felines, such as tigers or lions?)

But Russia, courtesy of her rulers, has cultivated that feeling throughout history, going back at least to the 16th century. The paranoid idea of being encircled by enemies wishing to wipe her out has become part and parcel of the Russian psyche, and it will persist for as long as Russia harbours megalomaniac ideas, which probably means for ever.

Building on that emotional capital, Putin may next claim he feels humiliated and rat-cornered because the three Baltic republics are still independent. They used to be part of the Russian-Soviet empire, and now they play at sovereignty. Come to think of it, the same goes for Poland and Finland. Their independence is a slap in Vlad’s face, which must be saved come what may.

Or he’ll claim that his face can only be saved by rebuilding the Warsaw Pact as a Russia-dominated federation. What will Manny be saying then?

Probably the same things. He is incorrigible, and his diseases are incurable. I just hope he – and his fellow Putinversteher Scholz – doesn’t infect everyone else.