For the past several years, the Washington Post’s senior diplomatic columnist, David Ignatius, has echoed the optimism of the Trump administration in predicting success for various peace plans involving the United States and Iran, Israel and Hezbollah, and Israel and Hamas. Ignatius is still at it. In an oped late last week, Ignatius predicted that despite “Trump’s hardball negotiating tactics…a deal (between Russia and Ukraine) seems to be getting closer.” (See Washington Post, December 12,2025, “The outlines of a sustainable Ukraine peace deal inch into view.”)

Ignatius makes no mention of the new National Security Strategy (NSS) from early December that demonstrated significant sympathy for Russian President Vladimir Putin alarmed our European allies. Nor did he mention the peculiar series of meetings between Ukraine’s chief diplomatic negotiator, Rustem Umerov, and the director and deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Kash Patel and Dan Bongino, which suggested U.S. pressure on Ukraine to accept Trump’s pro-Russian peace plan. Umerov, who previously served as Ukraine’s defense minister, may be implicated in the expanding corruption investigation that is burdening Zelensky’s leadership.

I can think of no national security issue........

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