Trump seems to be catching on

Nine months after he took office, after pledging he'd end Russia's war on Ukraine within 24 hours, Donald Trump is beginning to notice that Putin has been playing him like a harpist. The big problem with 47 is that he envies the near-total dominance that Comrades Putin and Xi enjoy over their people, so he tolerates behavior that from a lesser dictator -- Comrade Maduro, for example -- is met with live fire against drug-running boats and the deployment of B-1 bombers, F-35 fighters, and a naval task force including five vessels equipped with Tomahawk cruise missiles with a range of up to 1550 miles.

Those missiles should be aimed at Russia instead. It's Putin who's at war against the independent democracy of Ukraine, and it's Xi who's watching Trump's response as a guide to what China can get away with against the independent democracy of Taiwan. Putin has been stringing Trump along since the day he moved into the White House, most blatantly getting the literal red carpet in Alaska and US fighter jets to escort him back home. Whenever they meet or talk on the phone, they're chums. Trump is charmed by Putin, and in return gets nothing from him.

That's slowly changing. Trump dismissed the notion of another summit with the Russian dictator, sanctioned Russia's two largest oil companies, and allowed Ukraine to send its short-range Storm Shadow missiles onto Russian targets. (We have a veto over the British weapon because it uses American targeting information.) So Trump now permits Ukraine almost as much freedom of action as it had under the slow-walking Biden administration -- just enough to prevent Ukraine from losing the war, but never enough for it to win.

Send those Tomahawks to Ukraine, Mr President, or admit that you're a paper tiger.