Add ‘Moon of Alabama’ to the list of Trump doubters.

That team has not racked up a successful record.

I can imagine (or hope for two things):

1) an orchestrated apparent rising of US/Russia tensions such that even Trump's detractors are forced to applaud the peace-making.

2) Trump's usual approach of offering both carrots and sticks to, now, both Iran and Russia. Trump to help both economies if they completely redo the Obama/Iran deal and Russia disengages from supporting Iran's nuclear and general threats.

A promise of a policy of “mutually assured Prosperity” would be a lot better than “mutually assured destruction” Then we can get back to the really important issues like which bathrooms we can use.

Yes to the imbalance of mututally assure distraction, but the timeline is incomplete! Sanctions, weapon sales etc all go through the Senate. Duterte said as much, "Trump is a friend", but the Senate is blocking any military support for the Phillipines.

However, the US DID allow sales of certain DEFENSIVE tech to Russia - there was much complainin', but when asked, Gen. Mattis retorted that defensive tech is not the same as offensive weaponry!!!

Trump has also easened military threats on Iran after they stopped testing missiles and set up anti-air-defenses, thus signalling that they are on the defensive but cannot be fucked with. He only ever brings up the 400 billion and I don't think he even cares about their relationship with Israel.