Noam Chomsky: Trump the ‘One Western Statesman of Stature’ Pushing Peace in Ukraine

Famed leftist MIT professor Noam Chomsky has credited former President Donald Trump for being one of the few prominent statesmen in the West actively pushing for peace in Ukraine as opposed to escalating war with Russia.

Though Chomsky called the former president a dangerous figure for a host of reasons during a recent virtual interview, he did admit that Trump has proposed practical, peaceful solutions to ending the war in Ukraine. Chomsky said:

Well, there is, fortunately, one statesman in the United States and Europe, a high political figure, who has made a very sensible statement about how you can solve the crisis. Namely, by facilitating negotiations instead of undermining them and moving toward establishing some kind of accommodation in Europe, in which there are no military alliances, but just mutual accommodation.

He didn’t say it, but it was something like George H.W. Bush proposed in the early-90s after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Proposed what they called a partnership for peace, which would be open for Europeans generally, Eurasians as well, it wouldn’t eliminate NATO, but he would live to the promise that NATO would not expand to the east. Firm promise to Gorbachev. Keep to that. Allow NATO there, but kind of deemphasize it so other countries could join, including Russia, for that matter, and move toward a Eurasia with no military alliances.

I think DeGaul had a similar vision. Emmanuel Macron, in his initiatives trying to contact Putin, suggested something similar. So, going back to the one Western statesman, he didn’t mention all of this, but he suggested something similar. Move towards negotiations and diplomacy instead of escalating the war. Try to see if we can bring about accommodation, which would be roughly along these lines.

His name is Donald J. Trump

Noam Chomsky recently drew the establishment left’s ire when he suggested that Western powers should move to deescalate the conflict and “move towards a negotiated settlement.”

“What is the best thing to do to save Ukraine from a grim fate, from further destruction? And that’s to move towards a negotiated settlement,” he told Jeremy Scahill. “There are some simple facts that aren’t really controversial. There are two ways for a war to end: One way is for one side or the other to be basically destroyed. And the Russians are not going to be destroyed. So that means, one way is for Ukraine to be destroyed.”

“The other way is some negotiated settlement,” he added. “If there’s a third way, no one’s ever figured it out. So what we should be doing is devoting all the things you mentioned, if properly shaped, but primarily moving towards a possible negotiated settlement that will save Ukrainians from further disaster. That should be the prime focus.”