From: Atlantic Council By Daniel Fried
“There was always just enough virtue in this Republic to save it; sometimes none to spare.”
—William Seward
Finally, the blockage imposed by a minority of “America First” House members has been broken and, after a six-month delay, crucial US military aid may be on its way to Ukraine again. An alliance of what might be termed Reaganite Republicans and Trumanesque Democrats—a coalition that helped bring success in the Cold War and after—passed a $60.8 billion assistance package for Ukraine in 311-112 vote on Saturday. Rapid acceptance by the Senate and signature by US President Joe Biden look likely to follow in short order. The Biden administration appears poised to push ahead fast with sending new weapons to Ukraine.
The House vote stops the hemorrhage of US credibility that had thrown US allies into varying degrees of alarm and demoralized Ukrainians, who are fighting for their lives. Meeting with me and US colleagues in Kyiv in late March, a senior Ukrainian government official asked rhetorically what had become of the United States on which Ukraine has pinned its hopes for survival and freedom. Katarzyna Pisarska, head of the Casimir Pulaski Foundation and one of Poland’s most effective foreign policy experts, who led a group of Polish, German, and French parliamentarians to Washington in the days before the vote, put it bluntly: “We believe in America. Watching the paralysis in the face of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s aggression shook us all. Passage of the assistance restores our faith.”
Voice of Ukraine 