HE HAS NO CARDS! Well, Trump's latest tweet has finally explained everything. His sudden, panicked, mysterious, and complete shift toward the Kremlin, along with his hysterical attacks on Ukraine and Zelensky, has nothing to do with hopes of persuading Putin to agree to a ceasefire, lowering diesel prices, or “supporting American farmers and ranchers.” And it doesn't require some elaborate conspiracy theory, either. The explanation, I believe, is much simpler: pure, personal, suffocating FEAR. Fear that Putin might start “helping Iran” far more than he already does. And I suspect that this is precisely what the former KGB officer made unmistakably clear to our “genius negotiator” during their very long telephone conversation. Cross me, and I'll demonstrate just how much assistance Russia can provide its “Iranian partners,” conveniently timed to coincide with the critical election period. The resulting foreign policy and economic disaster could leave Trump completely screwed. And the Great Orange Pumpkin knows it. He dragged America into a war that turned out to be nothing like the glorious little adventure imagined by a man whose understanding of geopolitics sometimes resembles that of an eight-year-old with delusions of grandeur. Now he has absolutely no idea how to get out of it. Shouting at reporters, renaming oceans, and posting ridiculous memes are one thing. Escaping a genuine geopolitical catastrophe is something entirely different. Meanwhile, people around him may already be calculating that the more damage the Pumpkin does, the brighter the halo above his successor's head will appear. But Trump's fear, at least, follows a certain logic. He understands that Putin has the ability to inflict enormous political and economic damage on him, and he may believe that the Kremlin is threatening to do exactly that. What he apparently fails to understand is that concessions will not buy him Putin's goodwill. He will get NOTHING in return. Absolutely nothing. TRUMP HAS NO CARDS. NOT A SINGLE ONE. In my view, he is now in the weakest negotiating position of either of his presidential terms. Xi Jinping must be watching this spectacle in disbelief. The president of the United States, the leader of the world's most powerful democracy, appears increasingly vulnerable to pressure from the Kremlin. We may be witnessing something extraordinary: a situation in which Moscow is not merely trying to influence American foreign policy but appears capable of shaping Washington's decisions through threats and intimidation. The Kremlin, which American presidents once confronted from a position of strength, now seems to have discovered how to exploit the fears of the man sitting in the Oval Office. And the tragedy is that Trump appears willing to sacrifice Ukraine's interests, America's credibility, and the trust of its allies in a desperate attempt to protect himself from the consequences of his own decisions. So much for peace through strength. Look how things turned out, Mr. Reagan.