As Karen pointed out earlier, President Joe Biden is on his way to the NATO summit in Europe after a brief stop to visit King Charles III in England. In more normal times, this would be little more than a photo op featuring some tea and crumpets, but this morning everyone was just holding their breath and hoping Biden wouldn’t do or say something significantly embarrassing. The even bigger challenge will come at the NATO summit when we’ll find out what Biden will or won’t do about the ongoing war in Ukraine. This meeting offers the United States an opportunity to show some real leadership and take concrete steps to bring an end to the fighting. And God help us all, Joe Biden is who we have to handle the situation, for better or worse.

Over at the Philadelphia Inquirer, Trudy Rubin asks the same question that’s been on my mind, though she approaches the subject from a position diametrically opposite to mine. “Will Joe Biden seize or squander the chance to end Putin’s war?” She makes the case that the NATO summit needs to establish a firm path for Ukraine to join NATO “once the war ends.” She also cheerfully claims that the meeting represents an opportunity that “could plausibly lead to Ukrainian victory by year’s end.” And how would that happen? By flushing even more cash and increasingly powerful weapons into Zelensky’s hands, of course.

This is the moment when NATO members, led by Biden, should be laying out a clear path for Ukraine to join the alliance once the war ends. This is the moment, which, if seized, could plausibly lead to Ukrainian victory by year’s end.

This is also the moment when Biden should be announcing that the United States will finally expedite the arrival of critical weapons systems — long-range missiles and F-16 fighter jets — that are vital to the success of Ukraine’s counteroffensive.

As of this writing, though, all signs are that Biden will squander the moment, and none of the above will happen. As John Herbst, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, said during a webinar last week, ”Very thin gruel is likely in Vilnius.” If so, Biden and NATO will be gifting Putin big time, even as he reels from a failed mutiny attempt by one of his closest allies.

Despite Rubin’s pessimistic views over how Biden will handle the situation, she still offers a list of actions he could take to ensure a rapid Ukrainian “victory.” They were straight out of the most aggressive war hawks’ playbooks, and we’ve heard them all before. She defines victory as being when Ukraine retakes all of its original territory, including Crimea, and pushes Russia fully out of the country. She wants Biden to immediately deliver ATACMS long-range missiles to Kyiv. (Missiles that could easily reach deep into Russia.) She wants Biden to accelerate the training of Ukrainian pilots and the delivery of F-16 fighters rather than waiting until the fall as he has proposed.

Apparently, Trudy Rubin isn’t so far gone that she forgot to include NATO membership for Ukraine only “once the war ends.” Doing so any sooner would mean that as soon as the next missile fell anywhere inside of Ukraine’s borders we would be in world war three. It’s a war we would probably win, but the entire planet would pay the price for generations to come. But this position also fails to recall what it was that motivated Putin to invade to begin with. Despite promises from generations past, NATO has expanded to the point where it’s about to occupy the Russian Federation’s entire western flank. Putin obviously saw Ukraine as the last straw. I’m not saying that justifies what he’s done, but it is important to understand his mindset when talking about negotiations.

The author’s definition of “victory” for Ukraine also seems to be taken from some sort of alternate reality playbook. Does she really believe that Ukraine would be capable of fully taking back Crimea by force? The current “counteroffensive’s” goals fall well short of Crimea and they’ve largely stalled anyway. Most of Ukraine is in ruins and its infrastructure is shattered. They can’t keep fighting just to hold on to what they have without massive daily infusions of cash and weapons from NATO. And lest we forget, losing Crimea has been one of Putin’s “red lines” from the beginning. Rubin dismisses Mad Vlad’s threats of nuclear attacks as “bluster.” But a wounded animal trapped in a corner will often resort to drastic action. She’s taking a pretty cavalier attitude on behalf of the rest of us who wouldn’t care to see mushroom clouds popping up over New York City or Western Europe’s capitals.

But that doesn’t mean that Joe Biden doesn’t have some more sane and acceptable options open to him. (Assuming they can keep him upright and mostly in command of his senses while he’s there.) He can easily force Zelinsky to consider paths toward stability because he controls Zelensky’s fate. One hint that the United States might cut off or significantly reduce our aid and it would be over for Ukraine. Zelensky will play along.

But what does Biden have to offer Putin? It’s far more likely that it could happen now than it was three months ago. Putin’s position is weakened after the Wagner Group debacle and he knows it. What Biden could offer is some sort of a roadmap out of the war that allows Putin to save face with his own people in as much as possible. That could involve taking Crimea off the table while Russia agrees to abandon most (though perhaps not all) of the “annexed” territory in the east. We would agree to scale back (and when appropriate, end) our shipments of military supplies to Ukraine, but only as long as Russia continued a halt to firing missiles into the country. And Putin could agree to some degree of reparations to Ukraine, perhaps publicly saying that some of the attacks “went too far” and took out civilian targets.

That leaves a lot of details to be worked out and there’s no assurance that it would work out. But trying that would be better than nothing. And if Joe Biden wants to score a very large gold star on his report card after more than two disastrous years of his presidency, being the one to end the war in Ukraine would likely do the job. Will he manage it? I’m no more hopeful than Trudy Rubin, though likely for different reasons. But we can always dream.