David Ignatius: “Putin makes a perfect villain in this war. He’s brutal, arrogant and contemptuous of the rules of order that America and its allies celebrate. He told us what he was going to do, and he’s doing it. He is moving to take Ukraine hostage this week, which will leave three unpalatable choices. Either the West negotiates with the hostage-taker, which would be repugnant; the West frees the hostage by force; or we wait for the hostage-taker to become impoverished and fatigued, and quit the fight. This last outcome, which would be the best for the West, might also be the most likely — if the United States and its allies can be patient.”
“Still, there won’t be any good choices in the weeks and months ahead, only the consequences of bad ones that allowed Russia and the West to talk past each other, ducking the hard questions, for more than a decade.”
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