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Today’s Opinions: Trump is taking a victory lap on Gaza — and, yes, rightfully so

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Jan 16, 2025, 5:00:34 PMJan 16
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Plus: A message from Greenland. 3-3-3 economics....
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The Washington Post Newsletter
Get the news — and make sense of it, too.
By Jasmine Green and Drew Goins
Assistant editors

Missed yesterday’s edition? You can view previous newsletters or see the latest from the Opinions section

In today’s special co-bylined edition (meet Jasmine!):

An agreement to end gunfire is a start

Supporters of the Houthis gather in front of a digital billboard featuring President-elect Donald Trump during an anti-U.S. and anti-Israel protest in Sanaa, Yemen, on Jan. 10. (Yahya Arhab/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)

Supporters of the Houthis gather in front of a digital billboard featuring President-elect Donald Trump during an anti-U.S. and anti-Israel protest in Sanaa, Yemen, on Jan. 10. (Yahya Arhab/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)

Max Boot noted that in the hours after a ceasefire agreement was announced in Gaza, Donald Trump, though not yet inaugurated, was “already taking a victory lap for this deal.” Max noted something else, too: The president-elect was doing so “deservedly.”

Max explains, as many have analyzed, that the breakthrough deal came largely because of Trump’s leverage over Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu, leverage he has shown “a willingness to use.”

The next steps — actually ending the awful war for good and stabilizing the region more broadly — remain extremely difficult, but diplomat and Middle East expert Dennis Ross writes that Trump is well positioned here, too. Partly, that’s circumstantial; Israel has made unimaginable headway in weakening its neighborhood enemies of Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran, aided greatly by the unexpected ouster of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria.

But peace is not going to progress without Trump applying pressure, Ross writes. He lists two concrete objectives for the incoming president: get Israel to fully withdraw its military from Gaza once hostages are released, and reduce Iran’s nuclear capacity to the point that weapon-making is no longer possible. The second part might come first. Ross says that “if Trump can show he has essentially removed the Iranian threat, much will be possible.”

Max is similarly hopeful, writing not-totally-pessimistically about the possibility of a moderate government in Gaza that prevents a Hamas resurgence. Max even dangles the bauble Trump might most covet.

In a year’s time, could we be talking about Nobel Peace Prize laureate Donald J. Trump?

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Chaser: Anyone who wants to get serious about peace in the region should heed outgoing Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s sober address on how difficult that goal is, David Ignatius says. As David writes, “If speeches could bleed, this one would be dripping red.”

Greenland, eager for greenbacks

As minister of business and trade and mineral resources and justice AND gender equality for the government of Greenland, Naaja Nathanielsen probably has a lot on her plate. But as with Netanyahu, when Trump starts making loud noises about you, you react.

In this case, Trump’s covetous eye leads Nathanielsen to clarify that Greenland does not wish to be a part of the United States, thank you very much. However, she says, “we invite more American businesses to engage in the vast potential of our economy” and natural resources (and, presumably, justice and gender equality).

Nathanielsen points out that China produces two-thirds of the world’s rare-earth elements; more mining in Greenland could change that, if only more capital arrived. She savvily says, “At the moment, companies in Canada and Britain own the most mining licenses in Greenland. They each hold 23 licenses. The United States holds just one. I am sure this picture can change.”

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No doubt Trump is sure, too.

From Catherine Rampell’s column on Scott Bessent, Trump’s pick for treasury secretary, and his ambitious (read: unfeasible) economic plan.

Bessent’s “3-3-3” plan (not, if you can believe, the opening pitch of a Ponzi scheme) has three goals for strengthening America’s economy: produce 3 million more barrels of oil a day, raise GDP growth to 3 percent, and reduce the federal budget deficit to 3 percent of GDP within four years.

Catherine explains that three wrongs don’t make a right. She dismantles the prongs of his plan one by one (by one), finding that the “magnitude of cuts required to make Bessent’s arithmetic work is breathtaking.” Unfortunately, she writes, any economic progress made by Bessent’s proposals is likely to be swallowed whole by Trump’s even messier ones: mass deportations, tariff hikes and tax cuts, to name a few.

More politics

What do a pinky promise and the presidential oath of office have in common? Both are punishable by eternal torment if broken, at least according to English philosopher William Paley, Zeus the God of Thunder and the Founding Fathers of the United States.

Historian Kevin Butterfield chronicles in an essay the significance of oaths throughout world history, and how this tradition of honor made its way to the fledgling United States of America in 1789. The Constitution requires that all officeholders take oaths, but the presidential oath, Butterfield explains, is special: It is the only quoted text found within the entire Constitution. Almost 250 years later, it remains unchanged:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Solemn indeed.

Chaser: As Trump prepares for the oath on his way into office, Ramesh Ponnuru says President Joe Biden flubbed his address on the way out of it.

Smartest, fastest

It’s a goodbye. It’s a haiku. It’s … The Bye-Ku, by Jasmine.

The national debt

Or Greenland’s hulking icebergs —

Which one is deeper?

***

Have your own newsy haiku? Email it to me, along with any questions/comments/ambiguities. See you tomorrow!

 
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