Why attack Trump's moves towards peace in Ukraine?

Since at least February, 2022, the US has been at war, in material terms, with the Russian Federation in Ukraine. The war was the logical outcome of the US backed coup in February, 2014 which saw an anti-Russian minority in the western part of the country seize power from the elected president and almost immediately make war upon the sizable Russian ethnic population in the east. After 8 years of shelling of the civilian population in the eastern cities, and at the loud urging of both Russian-speaking Ukrainians and their domestic Russian families, Moscow stepped in to put a halt to the war. The war was the product of neocons in the permanent government, e.g., Victoria Nuland at the State Department, Geoffrey Pyatt (US Ambassador to Ukraine) and Michael McFaul (US Ambassador to the Russian Federation), and the neoliberal administrations of Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, with on-the-scene assistance from Senators John McCain, Richard Blumenthal, Lindsey Graham, and others. The obvious intent, since proven beyond the shadow of a doubt in documentary and oral testimony evidence, was to use Ukraine as a battering ram in order to produce a regime change in the Russian Federation that would be advantageous to Washington. Over the years from 2014 until the present, a heavy propaganda campaign was directed at the US and European populations to convince them of "the Russian threat to freedom and democracy" and "the need to fight them over there to prevent the need to fight them here." This included a campaign against candidate, and then President, Donald Trump from 2015 throughout his term ending in 2021, claiming that he was "Putin's puppet" for trying to make peace in Ukraine (in fact, he was impeached for this in 2019) and generally normalize relations with Russia. Four years after his term ended, and as the Biden administration climbed the ladder of escalation (and dragged Europe along with it), Trump ran for re-election, specifically running on a platform of ending the war and making peace with Russia. He was elected by a wide margin. Most observers acknowledge that his position on the war in Ukraine was a large part of the victory margin. Rather than acknowledge this fact and use it by supporting Trump in any moves towards peace, or call him on his promise if he waivers from doing so, the Left has instead joined the chorus of voices who maniacally oppose Trump's presidency, regardless of the affiliation of these voices with the pro-military and pro-war power elite. Their argument is, in essence, that Trump will show his true colors eventually and move the war and other hostilities forward, and that he is only a mask of the same warmongering forces behind it.

I have to take issue with this piece, and others like it out there, as to the argument that Trump's statements about cutting the military budget, making peace in Ukraine, normalizing relations with Russia and China, etc., are all bluster intended as cover for the exact opposite of his stated policy.

With all dues respect to this author (and some of the others), this one example amply illustrates the general bias with which these arguments are being presented.

Specifically, the claim that Trump did a reversal in August, 2017 on his promise to roll back sanctions against Russia completely ignores the bill (see Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act) passed almost unanimously (certainly in sufficient numbers to override any veto) by both houses of Congress in July of that year, which included this language:

"The President must submit for congressional review certain proposed actions to terminate or waive sanctions with respect to the Russian Federation."

At the time it passed, the US was in the throes of a campaign meant to convince Americans that he was installed as a result of election chicanery directed by Vladimir Putin and, despite his acquiescence to the Congressional action (which he was powerless to stop anyway), faced calls for removal FOR TREASON on the pages of the NY Times a year later and impeachment for attempting to block aid to Ukraine. One wonders what specific actions these critics would suggest he should have taken in that environment.

Further, if one is to ignore the first call to cut the Pentagon budget in half made by any US president - sitting or otherwise - then the question is raised how exactly this would otherwise be accomplished absent a revolution which is nowhere on the horizon and which, if it appeared to present itself at this moment would likely be done in opposition to the attempted cutbacks.

That the very people who have called for Trump's removal - in lockstep with the attempts by the leadership of both parties, the bulk of the corporate media, the "intel community" and others - for trying to deconflict in Ukraine and normalize relations with DPRK would have us disregard this apparent attempt to reconfigure US foreign policy with respect to Russia and China is, at a minimum, puzzling and, for certain, very disappointing.