Yesterday, 28 July, U.S. President Donald Trump received two foreign leaders at the White House: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, whose war against the Russian Federation the U.S. president had promised to end almost immediately upon returning to office, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on whose behalf the U.S. president had started a war against the Islamic Republic of Iran five months earlier to the day.
Both had come to Washington with the nominal purpose of attending the funeral for Senator Lindsey Graham, the late South Carolina Republican whose political career demonstrated an almost inexhaustible enthusiasm for American military adventurism, for which reason Graham had been in Washington both one of Israel’s most dependable supporters and, more recently, among Ukraine’s most reliable advocates. There, the two met in person for the first time in three years. But whether because of scheduling conflicts or their basic priorities, each would first meet with Trump.
With Zelensky surely knowing he would attend the funeral once he learned of Graham’s death—from a sudden aortic tear following his return from his tenth official visit to Ukraine, or perhaps days earlier in Kiev due to covert foreign action, if you’re inclined to entertain alternatives—the Ukrainian president announced just three days prior what he called “very strong results” from Ukrainian long-range operations against a Russian warship and vessels allegedly involved in transporting military cargo connected to Iran, with Ukraine having long treated the Caspian Sea as one of its foe’s supply corridors, striking ships and port infrastructure that Kiev said had carried ammunition, drone components, and other military equipment.
The Islamic Republic subsequently confirmed that an Iranian commercial vessel had been hit during the latest operation, which killed one sailor and injured another, though it had not been publicly established that the Iranian vessel had been carrying military matériel or that Ukraine had deliberately selected it as a target. Tehran summoned the Ukrainian chargé d’affaires, condemned the strike as hostile and criminal, and accused Kiev of attempting to expand the war between Russia and Ukraine—since, after all, it’s difficult to imagine a more literal representation of merging wars than an Iranian sailor killed in the Caspian Sea during a Ukrainian operation against the logistical relationship between Tehran and Moscow. Kiev later told Iran that the vessel had been struck unintentionally and that Ukraine did not seek escalation with Tehran.
Still, they didn’t need to wait long to see more evidence for it: later that same day, Zelensky echoed American accusations dating to 6 March that Russia had supplied Iran with information that could help Tehran strike American warships, aircraft, and other military assets in the region, and promised to provide partner governments with intelligence allegedly showing that Russia had helped Iran prepare attacks against American military facilities and regional states, with four bases in Bahrain, Jordan, and Kuwait having fallen within the area of interest for Russian satellites on 19 and 20 July alone. Accordingly, he argued that the timing of the surveillance corresponded closely enough with Iranian attacks to suggest that Moscow was assisting both target preparation and post-strike assessment, though of course he didn’t release the satellite evidence: neither did Ukraine provide any for its April claims that Russia had provided Iran with military targets in Israel. Still, what had begun as anonymous American officials describing Russian information that might help Iran attack American assets had become a far more specific Ukrainian account of Russian satellites observing particular bases before Iranian strikes, then returning afterward to assess the damage.
Such accusations may have been topics of discussion in Zelensky’s meeting with Trump before the funeral, but it was closed to the press. Afterward, the Ukrainian president said they had discussed licenses permitting Ukraine to produce interceptor missiles for the American-made Patriot air-defense system. Trump had already agreed in principle to license Patriot production, but a license was not a missile—the interceptors were expensive, complicated, and slow to manufacture, while Ukraine required them immediately to defend its cities from Russian attacks—and, accordingly, Zelensky met later that day with representatives of Lockheed Martin to discuss joint production and the exchange of military technology. Though Ukraine had entered the war as one of the world’s most dependent recipients of military assistance, its president now presents the country as a manufacturing partner, technological laboratory, intelligence source, and exporter of battlefield knowledge.
No doubt Graham watched proudly.
Then it was Netanyahu’s turn. The Israeli prime minister came seeking to ensure that Trump remained committed to the war against Iran and, in particular, to preventing Tehran from rebuilding or advancing its alleged nuclear program. Their meeting followed signs of friction: Trump had complained that Netanyahu was publicizing intelligence and planned talking points in an apparent effort to keep the U.S. involved. Meanwhile, the same air-defense shortage pressing upon Ukraine had become part of the military arithmetic of the American and Israeli campaign against Iran. American forces and their regional partners were defending installations, cities, shipping routes, and oil infrastructure against missiles and Iranian-designed drones—the same family of drones that Russia had spent years launching against Ukraine, for which reason the country has been helping the U.S. and its vassals among the Gulf monarchies counter Iranian drones since at least April (around which time it also offered to help open the Strait of Hormuz), and with its assistance reportedly requested less than a week after the war began.
That, of course, gives strong ground to the Islamic Republic’s accusation that Ukraine struck its cargo vessel in the Caspian Sea in an effort to merge its own war against Russia with the U.S. and Israel’s war against Iran. Some might even say the latter incentivizes them to do so: though conflict in the Middle East has increased demand for American air-defense weapons—and therefore diminished what can be supplied to Ukraine—now, with the prospect a license to produce Patriot missiles, Kiev could start manufacturing the same weapons to help itself, Washington, and Tel Aviv alike. Where now two wars compete for American weapons, Ukrainian manufacturing could soon help supply the common market.
The White House pronounced both meetings “positive and productive.” The diplomatic language made the afternoon sound orderly: Zelensky discussed Patriots and peace, while Netanyahu discussed Iran and partnership. The first meeting concerned Eastern Europe, and the second concerned the Middle East: the two fronts open today in the long campaign of Western imperialism’s thalassocracies to conquer the tellurocracies of Eurasia. But the gap between them has been shrinking since less than a week after the war against Iran began, and seems now little more than the spare time between their meetings.
So, Zelensky and Netanyahu arrived in Washington on the same day, each carrying a different portion of the same problem. One wanted weapons for the war Trump had promised to end, and the other wanted continued support for the war Trump had helped begin. Not coincidentally, they visited in the heat of a Washington summer for the funeral of a senator who had done so much to prepare the U.S. to support them both indefinitely.
Maybe you’ve noticed in the past decade that you know summer has arrived when social-media users begin announcing which particular variety of summer they intend to have. Hot girl summer, brat summer, feral girl summer, or whatever else the fashion industry seeks to promote: the season has in recent years become less a period of the year than an identity package, a temporary permission structure under which one may behave recklessly and spend money one does not have. (So much, in other words, like the American military.) Thus, in honor of the late statesman who brought these two fronts even closer together, Senator Lindsey Graham—though not for his inveterate warmongering, but instead for the #LadyGraham hashtag alleging his closeted homosexuality—we here at Radio Free Pizza would like to say to you all (a little late in the season, but nonetheless), “Welcome to hot war summer.”
Luckily, I have enough to support Radio Free Pizza this Hot War Summer. Now I’m off to look up some fancy words I need to learn. Cheers Zaq!