I don’t think anyone can be upset that there is at least the prospect of peace or even a respite in the war in Gaza. The hostages exchange is a godsend. That night mare is over. Good for the Trump administration for doing whatever they did to make it happen. And you have to give Trump credit because his corruption is the key.
Josh Marshal wrote this the other day and I think it’s right:
The key here is Trump’s extremely close relationships with the Gulf princes and his relationship with Israel and the Israeli right, especially Benjamin Netanyahu. The first (the relationship with the princes) is based on a mutual love of authoritarianism and corruption. More generously we might say it’s a shared vision of the future of the global economy and billionairedom — stated succinctly, the billionaires run the world. But for Trump, specifically, it’s about corruption. He and his family have now become genuine high rollers because of those relationships, which are all based on his political power in the United States. He monetized MAGA and made himself the billionaire he always dreamed of being.
That’s all very dark. But for the moment let’s set that aside. Because for present purposes the origins and bases of the relationship matter much less than the reality of it. Trump cares very, very much about what the princes want and what they think. They are also very dependent on the international system and the kind of U.S. government Trump is trying to create. He wants what they want. And they need to want what he wants. Not only was Joe Biden never in anything remotely like this position with the Gulf princes. No previous US president was either. The bond of authoritarianism and corruption was not there. The kind of U.S. government where this could be possible did not exist.
Trump is being as nasty and crude as usual as he struts across the world state today. He’s slamming Obama and Biden calling them stupid and inept for failing to achieve world peace as he has done. (Someone should send a memo to Vlad because he didn’t get it.) But the truth is that they just weren’t rich and corrupt enough to do what Trump has done.
It’s hard to believe that this will work out perfectly in the long run. I suppose you never know. But for today the short run is good enough. Hostages are exchanged, food is coming into Gaza and the bombing and killing has stopped. That’s all that matters. We can deal with the eventual political fallout later.
Humble as always and eager to share the credit, Trump knows that Peace Prize is his next year:
Trump to Israeli Knesset: “As you know, we decisively won World War 1. We decisively won World War 2, decisively, and everything in between and everything before it. We won everything and then they had the brilliant idea of changing the name from ‘war’ to ‘defense.’ And with that went a certain thinking. We fought in a very politically correct way after that. We always had the strongest military and now we have a stronger military than we ever had before. But we have settled 8 wars in 8 months. I’m now including this one, by the way. They may say, ‘Well, that was quick,’ but yesterday I was saying 7 but now I can say 8. The hostages are back.”