Outside the Beltway

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1. DK says:
   Saturday, 21 March 2026 at 08:01

   Ol’ Donny Trump Has Really Stepped in It This Time (Ryan Cooper @ The American Prospect)

   The developing situation in the region is that Iran is consolidating formal control over the strait… Only nations that have friendly relations with Iran, like China, are getting anything out. In a black irony, Iran is so far exporting more oil than it was last year.

   The easiest and least painful way to end Trump’s war is likely just to give up and let Iran seize the strait. Whatever extortionate tolls they might charge, it can’t be worse than choking off an artery controlling a quarter of international shipping. The likeliest reason that wouldn’t work is that Iran would not be satisfied… it is going to want some guarantees that America will not attack again, and even some reparations for all the child murder.

   But allowing Iran to set up a toll gate across the Strait of Hormuz is the outcome all American military plans have prioritized preventing at any cost. Allowing it to happen would probably collapse the alliance system with the Gulf states overnight. It would make Trump look like the world-historical imbecile he in fact is.

   It would also send the D.C. political press into a paroxysm of bloodthirsty rage. When President Biden ripped the Band-Aid off and ended the occupation of Afghanistan back in 2021, D.C. reporters savaged him mercilessly for weeks over the blow to their imperial pride, causing a dip in his polling numbers from which Biden never recovered…

   So if Trump tries to cut and run, he will face one of the few things he reacts to—a storm of criticism on television—plus fierce pushback from the D.C. blob….

   If Trump doesn’t cut and run, he faces a hole in global energy needs that grows by about 20 million barrels of oil and 20 billion cubic feet of natural gas every day…

   It would be a thorny situation even for the wisest statesmen in world history. Alas, all we have is an elderly idiot whose primary method of diplomacy is posting barely literate screeds on his personal social media site.

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2. DK says:
   Saturday, 21 March 2026 at 08:21

   Trump Doesn’t Remember What He’s Done (Anne Applebaum, Substack & The Atlantic)

   European leaders remember how Donald Trump insulted them…

   …As long ago as January 2020, Trump told several European officials that “if Europe is under attack, we will never come to help you and to support you.” In February 2025, he told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that he had no right to expect support either, because “you don’t have any cards.” Trump ridiculed Canada as the “51st state”… He claimed, incorrectly, that allied troops in Afghanistan “stayed a little back, a little off the front lines,” causing huge offense to the families of soldiers who died fighting after NATO invoked Article 5 of the organization’s treaty, on behalf of the United States, the only time it has done so.

   …Trump began hinting that he wouldn’t rule out using force to annex Greenland… …his public and private comments persuaded the Danes to prepare for an American invasion. Danish leaders had to think about whether their military would shoot down American planes, kill American soldiers, and be killed by them, an exercise so wrenching that some still haven’t recovered. In Copenhagen a few weeks ago, I was shown a Danish app that tells users which products are American, so that they know not to buy them. At the time it was the most popular app in the country.

   …Trump placed tariffs on Europe, the United Kingdom, Japan, and South Korea… He raised tariffs on Switzerland because he didn’t like the Swiss president, then lowered them after a Swiss business delegation brought him presents, including a gold bar and a Rolex watch. He threatened to place 100 percent tariffs on Canada should Canada dare to make a trading agreement with China…

   …Politico has published polls showing that the Canadians, French, British and Germans now believe that China is a more reliable partner than the US under Trump…

   Too bad the EU can’t issue a travel ban on pedovoters.

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3. Kathy says:
   Saturday, 21 March 2026 at 08:38

   Iran fired two missiles at Diego Garcia.

   They didn’t hit. It’s not clear whether one was intercepted or it failed. Thing is US intelligence, at least, did not know Iran could do this.

   Two missiles are not a major attack. More like a test.

   I wonder what the Mullahs learned.

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4. Mikey says:
   Saturday, 21 March 2026 at 08:39

   @DK:

   Too bad the EU can’t issue a travel ban on pedovoters.

   Pfff. Like any of those fools would want to travel to Europe. Where’s Europe’s Gatlinburg or Branson?

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