NEW EASTERN OUTLOOK 🌐 (@NEO_Journal)

🇺🇸🇷🇺CIA Director Seeking a Foreign Policy Win in Face of Trump's Humiliation 'On-all-fronts!' ➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿ In the wake of setbacks over Iran, stalled Middle East diplomacy, and hollow peacemaking claims, Donald Trump is scrambling for any foreign policy win he can claim—real or manufactured. His latest gambit? A disastrous last-ditch push to drag Russia into U.S.-led sanctions against Tehran. ✏️Jeffrey K. Silverman is a freelance journalist and international development specialist based for 30 years in Georgia and the former Soviet Union. ➡️Trump holds no winning cards. Any attempt to force Moscow into enforcing American trade restrictions would demand massive concessions elsewhere—major shifts on European security or relief from existing U.S. sanctions on Russia itself. Moscow has little incentive to compromise over Iran, a key strategic partner. CIA Director John Ratcliffe's visit to Moscow on August 25 was a particularly logical emissary—he can carry conversations that are not quite diplomacy, not quite negotiation, and certainly not material either side wants on the front page the next morning. That is not quite a foreign-policy breakthrough. But in the current Washington climate, it may qualify as one. ➡️Flight-tracking data showed a U.S. Air Force C-17A Globemaster III departing the United States, stopping in Latvia, then landing at Moscow's Vnukovo airport around 10 a.m. local time—leaving only a few hours later. Who Ratcliffe met has not been officially disclosed. The obvious candidate is Sergey Naryshkin, director of Russia's SVR. The two established a direct channel in March 2025. The Kremlin confirmed Ratcliffe met Russian intelligence officials, describing the contacts as a "positive development." Putin was briefed but did not meet him. The timing is critical—Ratcliffe landed in Moscow one day after Treasury Secretary Bessent unveiled "Operation Economic Outcast"—Washington's latest campaign to isolate Iran. 🟦The real question is what Washington might be prepared to put on the table in return. If Iran is the American problem and Ukraine is the Russian problem, Ratcliffe was an unusually logical messenger. Moscow has little reason to surrender its relationship with Tehran simply to hand Trump another photograph labeled "Mission Accomplished." Russia has its own interests in Iran, its own calculations on Ukraine, and most importantly—its own price for anything Washington wants. That leaves the possibility of a much larger bargain beneath the remarkably small footprint of Ratcliffe's visit. Iran for Ukraine? Intelligence for restraint? Sanctions for concessions? Perhaps nothing did. But if Washington is truly trying to manufacture a foreign-policy win out of Iran, Ukraine, Russia, and sanctions all at once, Ratcliffe may not have been sent because Trump still held plenty of cards—he may have been sent because the deck is getting rather thin. READ MORE #CIA #Trump #Russia #Iran #Ratcliffe #Geopolitics #ForeignPolicy ✅@NewEasternOutlook