PATRICK LAWRENCE: The Establishment is Changing its Tune on Russia

Russophobic rhetoric persists in Washington, but a counter-argument is emerging.

Could we finally be on our way for peace with Russia? Macron and Trump are leading the way.

Trump repeated the thought in Biarritz, claiming there was support among other members for the restoration of the G–8. “I think it’s a work in progress,” he said. “We have a number of people that would like to see Russia back.”

Macron is plainly one of those people. It was just after Trump sounded his theme amid Biarritz’s faded grandeur — and what an excellent choice for a convention of the Western powers — that the French president made his own plea for repairing ties with Russia and for Europe to escape its fate as “a theater for strategic struggle between the U.S. and Russia."

“The European continent will never be stable, will never be secure, if we don’t pacify and clarify our relations with Russia,” Macron said in his address to Western diplomats. Then came his flourish on the imminent end of the Atlantic world’s preeminence.

PATRICK LAWRENCE: The Establishment is Changing its Tune on Russia