These were just the first steps in what will become an increasingly strained relationship between Putin and Trump. The next will come quickly.
"We're all over the place fighting in areas that we shouldn't be fighting in," Trump declared in a recent speech in North Carolina. "This destructive cycle of intervention and chaos must finally come to an end."
An obvious jab at George W. Bush and the obsession with regime change that defined his neo-con subordinates, Trump gave voice to the war weariness that most Americans share. But he quickly revealed one of his many fatal flaws.
"We will stop racing to topple ... foreign regimes that we know nothing about, that we shouldn't be involved with," he said. "Instead our focus must be on defeating terrorism and destroying ISIS."
Destroy the Islamic State, defeat the terrorist threat ... these were to be the foundation stones of Trump's grand alliance with Putin. But Putin's vicious carpet-bombing in Aleppo shows the limits of unlimited destruction. The war grinds on, and the killing of the Russian ambassador in Ankara proves once again that military action promotes terrorist attacks, as Europeans and Americans have repeatedly learned.
Putin and Trump will find further difficulties squaring diverse approaches to Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Israel. But the biggest pressure on Trump comes from the support Congressional Republicans gave Obama's Cold War-mongering. Trump's "softness" on Russia can only lead to open warfare in the Republican Party, and potentially to his impeachment if he does not back down.
Predicting is difficult, especially about the future, said the philosopher Yogi Berra. But Trump hardly cares enough about anything other than himself to let Republican Cold Warriors and their Democratic fellow-travelers gain personal traction against him going into the Congressional elections of 2018.
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