“The United States is not pressuring Ukraine,” said national security adviser Jake Sullivan in early November, the day after NBC reported that he had broached the subject of negotiations with Zelensky. President Biden said, that same week, “We’re not going to tell them what they have to do.” And a week later, national security spokesman John Kirby asserted that “nobody from the United States is pushing or prodding or nudging [Zelensky] to the table.”

Well, maybe somebody from the United States should be. If an enduring peace can be had through negotiation — and we won’t know if it can until we explore that prospect — then negotiations would be in America’s interest. That alone might be enough reason for Biden to steer Ukraine toward the table. But as it happens, such a peace would be in Ukraine’s interests — and most of the world’s — as well.