Donald Trump is especially fond of illustrating his apprehension toward refugees fleeing violence, repression, and poverty in the Middle East and North Africa by citing the lyrics of Al Wilson’s “The Snake.” His most recent citation occurred just 11 days ago. The tune tells a tale of a duplicitous serpent in dire circumstances: The instinct-driven snake bites a kindhearted woman who came to care for it. The lesson is clear: it will be by your own naiveté in embracing obvious threats that you are undone. It’s clear that Trump never took the lesson in this fable to heart.
The administration seems aware that the president’s decision to take a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s longtime Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, and Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergei Kislyak, in the White House was, to put it mildly, optically undesirable. The fact that it occurred fewer than 24-hours after the president fired the head of the agency digging into his campaign’s alleged ties to Russia didn’t help matters.
Determined to limit the fallout from that meeting, the White House barred domestic press agencies from attending and taking photographs. A Russian photographer was, however, allowed to document it. Those photographs—courtesy of the Russian Foreign Ministry—soon found their way onto American editorial databases and the front pages of nearly every major daily newspaper in the country.
According to CNN’s Jim Acosta, the administration was both shocked and betrayed by Russian duplicity. “‘They tricked us,’ an official said of Russians. ‘They lie,’” he reported. Imagine that. The White House confessed that Russian representatives had informed them that the Russian photographer worked for Lavrov, not the state-owned news agency Tass.
This breach of trust was made even crueler by the revelation that the introduction of foreign agents with sophisticated camera equipment into the White House’s innermost sanctum may have been a security breach. The White House claimed that the Russian photographers received the same vetting that members of the American press endure before they get anywhere near the president or the Oval Office. The “former intelligence officials” who spoke with the Washington Post cautioned, though, that standard screening procedures may miss “a sophisticated espionage device.” Responding to a question about whether it was wise to let a Russian government photographer into the Oval Office, former deputy CIA director David S. Cohen answered flatly, “no.”
The Trump White House’s sense of betrayal over Russia acting like Russia is too precious. It’s indicative of the president’s arguably naïve views on not just Russia’s conduct of its foreign affairs but of the institutional pressures that have led to a deterioration of relations between Washington and Moscow over the last decade. Even as a candidate, Donald Trump displayed a conspicuous knowledge of Russia’s geopolitical priorities both in its region and abroad. What he seemed unaware of were Russian national interests and why they come into conflict with the West.
With Trump in the White House, the weight of the structure of America’s alliances, under direct and existential threat from Moscow, asserted itself. Suddenly, NATO was “no longer obsolete” once the president discovered the importance of its role. The Trump administration’s desire to drive a wedge between Iran and Russia stalled when it became clear that both Tehran and Moscow defined their interests as opposed to Washington’s. By the time the president executed cruise missile strikes on Russia’s vassal regime in Syria for the use of nerve agents on civilians, Trump was already describing bilateral relations as having reached an “all-time low.” For their part, the Kremlin agreed.
The dismal state of Russo-American relations is not a product of fate. Trump joins his last two consecutive predecessors in misjudging Russian interests and how they relate to and conflict with those of the United States. Reality has a way of insisting upon itself, but old habits do die hard. Yesterday, the Trump administration relearned a valuable lesson: The Russians aren’t their friends. They are strategic competitors. It’s not personal; it’s natural. When the Trump administration is finished safeguarding against the statistically insignificant threat posed by asylum seekers, they might devote some attention to the West’s foremost geostrategic foe.
