“Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all… In the execution of such a plan, nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated.” [emphasis added]
— George Washington, 1796
George Washington’s 1796 Farewell Address resonated sharply in the aftermath of the Oval Office confrontation between President Donald Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The ensuing reactions made it clear that a significant portion of the American public remained staunchly committed to supporting Ukraine, often without considering U.S. national interests. Some have argued that withholding support for the former Soviet republic is tantamount to abandoning an ally—despite Ukraine’s lack of membership in any mutual defense treaty with the United States and the absence of an official state of war between the U.S. and Russia. Others contend that anything short of unconditional U.S. support would inevitably draw the country into a larger conflict. Yet this argument, flawed as it may be, has remained secondary to the broader claim that the United States has a moral obligation to defend global democracy for which Ukraine is somehow posited as the first line of defense.
This is not the first time a foreign conflict has been exploited by external and domestic actors to divide Americans along ideological lines. Indeed, Washington’s famous warning in 1796 was directly shaped by efforts to entangle the young American republic in the wars of the French Revolution just a few years earlier. Following the overthrow of Louis XVI, the newly established French Republic dispatched its first ambassador to the United States. Arriving in 1793, Ambassador Edmond-Charles Genet immediately set about galvanizing public support for American intervention on France’s behalf against Spain and Great Britain. Recognizing that such involvement ran counter to U.S. interests, Washington issued the Proclamation of Neutrality on April 22, 1793. Undeterred, Genet sought to deepen factionalism within the United States, attempting to pressure Washington into an alliance with Revolutionary France. His audacious provocations eventually led to his recall.
Genet’s strategy was to exploit existing societal divisions in the United States by framing support for France as an ideological litmus test of an individual’s broader political beliefs. Those who advocated material support for Revolutionary France went so far as to accuse their opponents of harboring pro-monarchist sympathies, branding all dissent as morally reprehensible and even treasonous in light of the prevailing political attitudes in the young American republic.
The fallout from the recent Oval Office confrontation followed a similar pattern. The immediate catalyst for the discord was Vice President Vance’s reaffirmation that the United States would continue diplomatic engagement with Russia to seek an end to the Ukraine war. Zelensky was incensed by this prospect, vehemently rejecting any negotiations with Moscow on the grounds that the Russian government was fundamentally untrustworthy.
The American public quickly fractured along familiar fault lines, with opponents of Trump condemning anyone who questioned Zelensky’s position as tacitly, if not explicitly, aligned with Russia. However, a careful review of the full 50-minute Oval Office exchange reveals that Vance’s admonishment of Zelensky as “disrespectful” came only after the Ukrainian president repeatedly dismissed diplomatic efforts toward a ceasefire with Russia as unviable. From the outset, Zelensky responded to any mention of negotiations—short of explicit U.S. security guarantees—with visible signs of disapproval, including headshaking, eye-rolling, and other gestures that underscored his intransigence toward incorporating Russian interests into a final settlement. Notably, Trump himself referenced these gestures in his subsequent statement on the meeting.
Zelensky’s objectives in the meeting were unmistakable: he sought to deepen U.S. entanglement in the war by securing explicit U.S.-backed security guarantees, which had already been openly rejected by the Trump administration in the run up to the meeting. Zelensky remains fully aware that Russia would never accept Washington extending such guarantees to Kyiv, nor would Moscow tolerate the presence of U.S. troops in Ukraine. Conceding to his demands would, in effect, amount to granting Ukraine de facto NATO membership. Conversely, engaging diplomatically with Moscow would necessitate acknowledging Russia’s sovereign interests and security concerns as legitimate—an outcome most European leaders categorically reject.
Predictably, European leaders—with the sole exception of Hungary’s Victor Orbán—promptly reaffirmed their support for Zelensky, as their strategic calculus is similarly grounded in the total political and economic isolation of Russia. The Oval Office exchange suggests that Zelensky was not merely addressing the U.S. president; he was making a direct appeal to the broader Western world, especially the American public. He had accurately anticipated that the global media and much of the Global West’s policy establishment would side with him over Trump’s preference for a negotiated end to the war through bilateral talks with Russia.
Vice President Vance recognized this dynamic. Had he not directly challenged Zelensky for attempting to litigate the issue in front of the media, then President Trump might not have confronted the Ukrainian leader as forcefully as he did. Zelensky aimed to weaken the American president’s position on the world stage—to publicly defy him and demonstrate to the media that not only does the transatlantic consensus oppose Trump, but also the only acceptable outcome of the war was Russia’s total defeat and humiliation. Vance’s recognition of this maneuver, and his decision to expose it, compelled Zelensky to respond in a way that inadvertently revealed his true aims. This, in turn, enabled Trump to reassert his responsibility to act in the interests of the American people rather than in pursuit of Ukraine’s increasingly unrealistic war objectives.
Zelensky’s attitude also revealed that he was acutely aware of how U.S. support for Ukraine has become increasingly intertwined with opposition to Trump. He therefore arrived at the Oval Office intent on leveraging anti-Russia sentiment within the anti-Trump segment of the American public to deepen domestic political polarization to his advantage. It was this faction of the American electorate to whom Zelensky was truly speaking.
The Ukrainian president appeared particularly flustered when Vice President Vance raised his campaign-stunt visit to a munitions factory in Scranton, Pennsylvania, less than two months before the U.S. presidential election. Zelensky had toured the facility in the key battleground state alongside Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro, emphasizing the importance of continued U.S. military aid to Ukraine.
But Vance was right to highlight this episode. For one, the Ukrainian president was clearly aware of growing Republican skepticism toward continued war funding—most notably exemplified by then-Senator Vance’s proposed bill to audit American taxpayer money sent to Ukraine. Moreover, the visit to a U.S. arms factory aligned perfectly with the pro-war narrative advanced by the Harris campaign, which framed military aid to Ukraine as a benefit to the U.S. economy, given that much of the appropriated funds remained in domestic circulation through defense contracts.
Zelensky’s remarks at the factory also carried patently partisan political overtones. He spoke of the inevitable triumph of the “democratic world” at a time when Trump’s opponents were portraying his potential victory as a fundamental threat to democracy itself. The mainstream media amplified this framing, reinforcing the broader narrative. Further underscoring the political nature of his U.S. visit, Zelensky had only recently described Vance as “too radical” in an interview with The New Yorker, a publication known for its staunchly anti-Trump stance. The attempt to influence American public opinion and sway the election in a particular direction was unmistakable.
It is unfortunate that Vice President Vance did not similarly challenge U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer when he visited the Oval Office one week prior to Zelensky. Starmer’s Labour Party had been even more overt in its efforts to influence the 2024 U.S. presidential election, having dispatched at least 100 party staffers to swing states in the months before the election to campaign for Harris. Zelensky’s swift travel from the Oval Office to 10 Downing Street was hardly coincidental, as the United Kingdom has consistently been at the forefront of support for Ukraine’s war effort and a major obstacle to diplomacy with Russia. Not only does Moscow view London as the “main instigator” of global conflicts, but according to Ukrainian sources, former Prime Minister Boris Johnson had a prominent role in sabotaging Russia-Ukraine peace talks in April of 2022—persuading Kyiv to reject negotiations with Moscow over hopes of Russia’s total defeat.
Zelensky has since met with European leaders to reinforce the idea that the broader transatlantic alliance stands firmly with Ukraine, rather than aligning with the United States under its current leadership. This carries significant geopolitical implications, as Europe’s technocratic leadership has become increasingly explicit in its portrayal of Trump and his America First agenda as antithetical to the liberal internationalist framework that underpins NATO and transatlantic unity itself.
This assessment is largely accurate. The efforts of the client states of the postwar American empire and their U.S.-fixated cosmopolitan elites to resist the return of history and realist geopolitics are strategically rational: Trump’s attempt at realigning U.S.-led imperial order threatens their comfortable, entrenched position as custodians of transatlantic globalism.
The desire for global hegemony produces a parasitic system based on vassalage and wealth transfers that harms both the imperial center and the periphery—locking them into a vicious cycle of mutual dependence and erosion.
As is the case with all hegemonic systems, imperial expansion necessitates the increasing allocation of resources to peripheral regions in order to sustain the empire, ultimately serving the material interests of a cosmopolitan ruling class who derive their status from their linkages with the imperial capital. Meanwhile, the core nation is increasingly hollowed out, functioning as a provider of raw capital—whether physical, financial, or even human—to maintain a system that perpetuates rent-seeking and disproportionately benefits the empire’s transnational rentier class who facilitate imperial wealth transfers.
This is not to dismiss the universalist moral and ideological framework that both sustains and justifies this system. Indeed, those who materially benefit from globalist universalism routinely invoke lofty ideals like “universal justice” and “human rights” to garner public support for an ailing global order that leaves much of the populace increasingly impoverished, politically disillusioned, and socially alienated. Recall Barack Obama’s famous assertion that “the arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice.” Within this framework, the displacement of those who adhere to traditional values and national bonds is not an unfortunate byproduct but rather an essential aspect of progress toward a world that transcends all rootedness, let alone nationality.
From the liberal internationalist perspective, America cannot be understood as a nation rooted in a distinct historical identity, cultural heritage, or particular way of life. Instead, it must be a universalist project—a totalizing ideological construct transcending all boundaries and abandoning its national interest to serve the higher cause of global justice.
One should be under no illusion that the European leaders rallying to Zelensky’s defense view their own nations any differently either. Similarly, their alignment with the United States is not rooted in genuine affinity for its people or customs but rather in a strategic calculation: they support Washington only to the extent that the American government shares their supposedly righteous universalist agenda while possessing the relative power necessary to engineer a truly global order based on neoliberal values that is positively hostile to global cultural pluralism.
As such, the transatlantic establishment views Trump as a threat precisely because he directly and reflexively appeals to the American people—not as an abstract idea or a “proposition”, but as a concrete national community deserving of recognition, protection, and respect in a multiplex world of varied peoples and nations.
Indeed, Trump’s rejection of the liberal international order and his forceful—if often brash—defense of American national interest and sovereignty form the basis of the establishment’s disingenuous attempt to link him with Vladimir Putin in the minds of the American public. This narrative persists mainly because both leaders advocate for the sovereign primacy of great powers in their near abroad and promote an interest-based approach to foreign affairs. Likewise, any world leader who resists external intervention by supranational bodies and unelected bureaucracies—such as Hungary’s Viktor Orbán—is similarly slandered as a pro-Kremlin puppet.
It is, of course, absurd to equate opposition to unconditional support for Zelensky with endorsing Russia, let alone celebrating Vladimir Putin’s leadership. In fact, given how free speech—enshrined in the First Amendment of the U.S. Bill of Rights—has become a major ideological fault line between conservatives and liberals in the West, it would be difficult to find a conservative commentator who would defend Russian restrictions on expression or advocate for emulating its political system in Western democracies.
Ironically, it is European governments most opposed to Moscow that increasingly embody the very authoritarian tendencies they claim to abhor in Russia: enthusiastically enacting draconian “hate speech” laws, canceling presidential elections, and banning anti-establishment candidates to suppress dissent and maintain societal control. Yet it is the Trump administration that they accuse of abandoning fundamental Western values.
Today, as during the Genet Affair, America’s domestic factionalism has been deliberately inflamed by external actors seeking to manipulate the country for their own ideological and material interests. In the 1790s, President George Washington ordered the recall of Edmond-Charles Genet after the French envoy persistently sought to agitate American political divisions in the interest of Revolutionary France. Washington recognized the broader implications of self-seeking foreign agitators exploiting partisan domestic sentiment, just as he understood the bad-faith nature of those who falsely accused anti-interventionists of having pro-British—even monarchist—sympathies.
Not only would intervention on France’s behalf have been contrary to the vital interests of the young American republic, but it would also have violated Washington’s foundational political philosophy. For Washington saw neutrality as the only position consistent with the principles of sovereign statehood—whereby in an international system devoid of any overarching executive authority, a state is inevitably obliged to accept other states as equally sovereign and independent actors.
Washington’s conception of foreign policy is thus fundamentally incompatible with the contemporary “rules-based order”, in which (national) sovereignty is respected and deemed legitimate only if a country’s domestic politics conforms to an increasingly authoritarian, neoliberal vision of universal justice and human rights. Trump rejects this framework outright; though imperfect, his approach to international affairs is far closer to the realist principles championed by George Washington and the American Founders. He intuitively understands that U.S. engagement with the world should be guided by common sense and tangible interests that demonstrably enhance the security and prosperity of the American people.
Given J.D. Vance’s sharp political instincts, it should come as no surprise that he and Trump immediately recognized Zelensky’s attempt to exploit America’s internal political divisions to pressure the administration and obstruct its peace initiative. Whether relations between Zelensky and the Trump administration can be repaired remains to be seen. Regardless, the 47th President is correct in his assessment that the escalatory policies pursued in the proxy war against Russia have brought the world dangerously close to nuclear conflict. He is also right that the prevailing approach has not served U.S. national interests, nor has it been beneficial to Ukraine.
George Washington understood that the fundamental question of his time was not whether American foreign policy should favor France or Britain, nor whether the nation should align with monarchy or revolution abroad. Rather, he believed that the highest principle guiding U.S. statecraft on the world stage must be to protect America’s national interests—prioritizing the welfare of its own citizens above idealistic concerns or the ambitions of others.
Indeed, the Trump-Vance administration is applying the inherent wisdom of Washingtonian realism to the Ukraine war. Today, the United States is not aligned with Kyiv or Moscow, nor with Zelensky or Putin—choosing instead to embrace the kind of positive, principled neutrality that it had forsaken for decades.
Following the precedent set by its first president, America’s 47th President has begun to restore U.S. foreign policy to its original foundation: the interests of the American people.
The Western powers have failed to effectively manage the increasing threat of proliferation in the Middle East. While the international community is concerned with Iran’s nuclear program, Saudi Arabia has moved forward with developing its own nuclear program, and independent studies show that Israel has longed possessed dozens of nuclear warheads. The former is a member of the treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), while the latter has refused to sign the international agreement.
On Middle East policy, the Biden campaign had staunchly criticized the Trump administration’s unilateral withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), more commonly known as the Iran Nuclear Deal and it has begun re-engaging Iran on the nuclear dossier since assuming office in January 2021. However, serious obstacles remain for responsible actors in expanding non-proliferation efforts toward a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East.
This panel will discuss how Western powers and multilateral institutions, such as the IAEA, can play a more effective role in managing non-proliferation efforts in the Middle East.
Panelists:
– Peggy Mason: Canada’s former Ambassador to the UN for Disarmament
– Mark Fitzpatrick: Associate Fellow & Former Executive Director, International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS)
– Ali Vaez: Iran Project Director, International Crisis Group
– Negar Mortazavi: Journalist and Political Analyst, Host of Iran Podcast
– David Albright: Founder and President of the Institute for Science and International Security
Closing (5:45 PM – 6:00 PM ET)
What is the current economic landscape in the Middle East? While global foreign direct investment is expected to fall drastically in the post-COVID era, the World Bank reported a 5% contraction in the economic output of the Middle East and North African (MENA) countries in 2020 due to the pandemic. While oil prices are expected to rebound with normalization in demand, political instability, regional and geopolitical tensions, domestic corruption, and a volatile regulatory and legal environment all threaten economic recovery in the Middle East. What is the prospect for economic growth and development in the region post-pandemic, and how could MENA nations promote sustainable growth and regional trade moving forward?
At the same time, Middle Eastern diaspora communities have become financially successful and can help promote trade between North America and the region. In this respect, the diaspora can become vital intermediaries for advancing U.S. and Canada’s business interests abroad. Promoting business diplomacy can both benefit the MENA region and be an effective and positive way to advance engagement and achieve foreign policy goals of the North Atlantic.
This panel will investigate the trade and investment opportunities in the Middle East, discuss how facilitating economic engagement with the region can benefit Canadian and American national interests, and explore relevant policy prescriptions.
Panelists:
– Hon. Sergio Marchi: Canada’s Former Minister of International Trade
– Scott Jolliffe: Chairperson, Canada Arab Business Council
– Esfandyar Batmanghelidj: Founder and Publisher of Bourse & Bazaar
– Nizar Ghanem: Director of Research and Co-founder at Triangle
– Nicki Siamaki: Researcher at Control Risks
The Middle East continues to grapple with violence and instability, particularly in Yemen, Syria and Iraq. Fueled by government incompetence and foreign interventions, terrorist insurgencies have imposed severe humanitarian and economic costs on the region. Meanwhile, regional actors have engaged in an unprecedented pursuit of arms accumulation. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have imported billions of both Western and Russian-made weapons and funded militant groups across the region, intending to contain their regional adversaries, particularly Iran. Tehran has also provided sophisticated weaponry to various militia groups across the region to strengthen its geopolitical position against Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Israel.
On the other hand, with international terrorist networks and intense regional rivalry in the Middle East, it is impractical to discuss peace and security without addressing terrorism and the arms race in the region. This panel will primarily discuss the implications of the ongoing arms race in the region and the role of Western powers and multilateral organizations in facilitating trust-building security arrangements among regional stakeholders to limit the proliferation of arms across the Middle East.
Panelists:
Luciano Zaccara: Assistant Professor, Qatar University
Dania Thafer: Executive Director, Gulf International Forum
Kayhan Barzegar: Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science and International Relations at the Science and Research Branch of Azad University
Barbara Slavin: Director of Iran Initiative, Atlantic Council
Sanam Shantyaei: Senior Journalist at France24 & host of Middle East Matters
The emerging regional order in West Asia will have wide-ranging implications for global security. The Biden administration has begun re-engaging Iran on the nuclear dossier, an initiative staunchly opposed by Israel, while also taking a harder line on Saudi Arabia’s intervention in Yemen. Meanwhile, key regional actors, including Qatar, Iraq, and Oman, have engaged in backchannel efforts to bring Iran and Saudi Arabia to the negotiating table. From a broader geopolitical perspective, with the need to secure its energy imports, China is also expected to increase its footprint in the region and influence the mentioned challenges.
In this evolving landscape, Western powers will be compelled to redefine their strategic priorities and adjust their policies with the new realities in the region. In this panel, we will discuss how the West, including the United States and its allies, can utilize multilateral diplomacy with its adversaries to prevent military escalation in the region. Most importantly, the panel will discuss if a multilateral security dialogue in the Persian Gulf region, proposed by some regional actors, can help reduce tensions among regional foes and produce sustainable peace and development for the region.
Panelists:
– Abdullah Baabood: Academic Researcher and Former Director of the Centre for Gulf Studies, Qatar University
– Trita Parsi: Executive Vice-President, Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft
– Ebtesam Al-Ketbi: President, Emirates Policy Centre
– Jon Allen: Canada’s Former Ambassador to Israel
– Elizabeth Hagedorn: Washington correspondent for Al-Monitor
Military interventions, political and economic instabilities, and civil unrest in the Middle East have led to a global refugee crisis with an increasing wave of refugees and asylum seekers to Europe and Canada. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic has, in myriad ways, exacerbated and contributed to the ongoing security threats and destabilization of the region.
While these challenges pose serious risks to Canadian security, Ottawa will also have the opportunity to limit such risks and prevent a spillover effect vis-à-vis effective humanitarian initiatives in the region. In this panel, we will primarily investigate Canada’s Middle East Strategy’s degree of success in providing humanitarian aid to the region. Secondly, the panel will discuss what programs and initiatives Canada can introduce to further build on the renewed strategy. and more specifically, how Canada can utilize its policy instruments to more effectively deal with the increasing influx of refugees from the Middle East.
Panelists:
Erica Di Ruggiero: Director of Centre for Global Health, University of Toronto
Reyhana Patel: Head of Communications & Government Relations, Islamic Relief Canada
Amir Barmaki: Former Head of UN OCHA in Iran
Catherine Gribbin: Senior Legal Advisor for International and Humanitarian Law, Canadian Red Cross
In 2016, Canada launched an ambitious five-year “Middle East Engagement Strategy” (2016-2021), committing to investing CA$3.5 billion over five years to help establish the necessary conditions for security and stability, alleviate human suffering and enable stabilization programs in the region. In the latest development, during the meeting of the Global Coalition against ISIS, Minister of Foreign Affairs Marc Garneau announced more than $43.6 million in Peace and Stabilization Operations Program funding for 11 projects in Syria and Iraq.
With Canada’s Middle East Engagement Strategy expiring this year, it is time to examine and evaluate this massive investment in the Middle East region in the past five years. More importantly, the panel will discuss a principled and strategic roadmap for the future of Canada’s short-term and long-term engagement in the Middle East.
Panelists:
– Ferry de Kerckhove: Canada’s Former Ambassador to Egypt
– Dennis Horak: Canada’s Former Ambassador to Saudi Arabia
– Chris Kilford: Former Canadian Defence Attaché in Turkey, member of the national board of the Canadian International Council (CIC)
– David Dewitt: University Professor Emeritus, York University
While the United States continues to pull back from certain regional conflicts, reflected by the Biden administration’s decision to halt American backing for Saudi Arabia’s intervention in Yemen and the expected withdrawal from Afghanistan, US troops continue to be stationed across the region. Meanwhile, Russia and China have significantly maintained and even expanded their regional activities. On one hand, the Kremlin has maintained its military presence in Syria, and on the other hand, China has signed an unprecedented 25-year strategic agreement with Iran.
As the global power structure continues to shift, it is essential to analyze the future of the US regional presence under the Biden administration, explore the emerging global rivalry with Russia and China, and at last, investigate the implications of such competition for peace and security in the Middle East.
Panelists:
– Dmitri Trenin: Director of Carnegie Moscow Center
– Joost R. Hiltermann: Director of MENA Programme, International Crisis Group
– Roxane Farmanfarmaian: Affiliated Lecturer in International Relations of the Middle East and North Africa, University of Cambridge
– Andrew A. Michta: Dean of the College of International and Security Studies at Marshall Center
– Kelley Vlahos: Senior Advisor, Quincy Institute
The security architecture of the Middle East has undergone rapid transformations in an exceptionally short period. Notable developments include the United States gradual withdrawal from the region, rapprochement between Israel and some GCC states through the Abraham Accords and the rise of Chinese and Russian regional engagement.
With these new trends in the Middle East, it is timely to investigate the security implications of the Biden administration’s Middle East policy. In this respect, we will discuss the Biden team’s new approach vis-à-vis Iran, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and Israel. The panel will also discuss the role of other major powers, including China and Russia in shaping this new security environment in the region, and how the Biden administration will respond to these powers’ increasing regional presence.
Panelists:
– Sanam Vakil: Deputy Director of MENA Programme at Chatham House
– Denise Natali: Acting Director, Institute for National Strategic Studies & Director of the Center for Strategic Research, National Defense University
– Hassan Ahmadian: Professor of the Middle East and North Africa Studies, University of Tehran
– Abdulaziz Sagar: Chairman, Gulf Research Center
– Andrew Parasiliti: President, Al-Monitor
