Wednesday, April 8, 2026

Art of the Deal that Reset the World

Doug Ross @ Journal  
"Let’s do a quick recap for the folks in the cheap seats. The Panicans said it was reckless. Wrong. They said it would start a war. Wrong. They said there was no plan. Wrong. They said Trump was in over his head. Spectacularly wrong. At some point, being wrong this consistently stops being a mistake and starts being a lifestyle." . . . 

"On April 7, 2026, a ceasefire with Iran went into effect — and somewhere, an entire army of blue-check foreign policy experts quietly deleted their “This is how World War III starts” threads. While the Panicans were hyperventilating into their New Yorker tote bags, Trump was running the same playbook he’s used since the ‘80s. Pressure, escalation, leverage, deal. It wasn’t a secret. He literally wrote a book about it. But reading is hard when you’re too busy doom-scrolling and writing “we’re all gonna die” in a group chat full of people who think The View is news. The ceasefire is real. The Strait is reopening. And the Panicans owe everyone an apology they’ll never give — because admitting they were wrong would require a level of self-awareness they haven’t unlocked yet.
"Trump has been running this same move since before most of these pundits had Twitter accounts, and they still fell for it. Every. Single. Time. He did it with China on trade — “Oh no, tariffs will destroy us!” Deal. He did it with North Korea — “He’s going to nuke Guam!” Summit. He did it with the USMCA — “NAFTA is sacred!” Signed. And now Iran — “He’s a madman, this is catastrophic!” Ceasefire. At this point, falling for the panic is like being the guy who gets Charlie Brown’d by the football for the 40th time and still blames the football. The Panicans had months to recognize the pattern. A toddler with a memory could’ve called this. But instead, they spent every night on cable news looking directly into a camera and being wrong with absolute confidence. That takes talent. The wrong kind — but talent nonetheless." . . .
. . . "Now here’s where it gets really fun — because the ceasefire isn’t just a Middle East story, and the Panicans have no idea what’s coming next. The Strait of Hormuz is reopening, which means twenty percent of the world’s oil is no longer held hostage by a regime that doesn’t exist anymore. Whoops. Russia and Ukraine are getting dragged toward a real negotiation because the U.S. just showed the entire planet what happens when it actually commits. China is looking at Taiwan and doing math it doesn’t like. And across the Middle East, countries that couldn’t agree on what day it was are suddenly standing in a line together (remember “The Board of Peace”?). Meanwhile, the “experts” who said none of this was possible are now pivoting to “well, anyone could have done this” — which is hilarious, because they had eight years under Obama and four under Biden to try, and the best they managed was pallets of cash, a nuclear-armed terror state and a participation trophy. Phase 2 is the homecoming: immigration, housing, AI, infrastructure, space. The adults are back at the table. The Panicans can take a seat — preferably in the back, where we can’t hear them." . . .More...

"One of the many faults with today’s Democratic party is they don’t know how to win. They are defeatists. They find themselves on the wrong side of all kinds of 80-20 issues, like open borders, defending illegal criminals, waste, fraud, and abuse corruption, tax hikes, and men in women’s locker rooms. Now, here they go once again badmouthing President Trump’s tremendous victory in Operation Epic Fury, that absolutely crushed Iran in only 38 days. These defeatist Democrats now want to limit the commander in chief’s foreign policy powers, at almost exactly the moment where Mr. Trump, and our mighty military, and American patriots everywhere have scored a tremendous victory.

"Is the war over? I think it basically is. There may be more hostilities, but we’re on the one-yard line. Let’s wait and see. Mr. Trump will never cut a bad deal. He has opened the Strait of Hormuz to take the pressure off energy prices. And he’s keeping all the American military forces in place in the Middle East, just to make sure a badly defeated Iran makes a peace deal. They may misbehave, and more bombing will occur. If they don’t agree to turning over the enriched uranium to America, then more bombing may be necessary. Ditto for their missile programs. Ditto if they keep bombing our Gulf allies." . . .

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