Mother of all fireworks

So, after the United States delivered the mother of all fireworks to Iran with an airstrike that included those fancy Hollywood-grade bunker busters, the world held its breath.

Then — shazam! — Donald Trump emerged like a beauty pageant host, saying, “And now, world peace!” Israel and Iran, bloodied but blinking, nodded yes to a ceasefire brokered by the man who once said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose voters.

We now ask: was it really for peace? Or just another Trumpian flex, the geopolitical equivalent of saying, “You mess with the orange, you get the boom?”

Let’s be honest. No one expected Trump, of all people, to be the one dialing the hotline to peace. This is the same man whose foreign policy doctrine could be summarized as “Big Button Energy.”

But lo and behold, after the dust and dollar signs from the bunker busters settled — each reportedly costing tens of millions of dollars, or just slightly less than your average Philippine corruption scandal —Trump walks in with a ceasefire.

Magnanimous, no? Well, not quite.

If this war were a movie, it’d be titled, “Shock and Awe: The Trump Doctrine.” The script goes like this: provoke Iran through sanctions, push Israel to go full Marvel villain on suspected nuke sites, then unleash the US Air Force with enough firepower to make Michael Bay blush. Once the world starts Googling “fallout shelters near me,” Trump throws in a ceasefire and claims the Nobel Peace Prize by right of conquest. All that’s missing is a gold-plated peace dove in a MAGA (Make America Great Again) cap.

The ceasefire, conveniently timed after Iran’s military infrastructure took a pounding and Israel flexed its Iron Dome like it’s a Peloton workout, paints Trump not as a peacemaker, but a showrunner. This was less about diplomacy and more about optics — because nothing says presidential like a war you started, stopped, and starred in.

Think of it as “America’s Got Missiles,” and Trump just hit the golden buzzer.

Meanwhile, the world looked on in collective whiplash. China shook its head, Russia squinted suspiciously, and the rest of us checked gas prices like we were watching the stock market. The Middle East, already a complicated Rubik’s cube dipped in oil and TNT, now had to pretend like everything was normal while both Iran and Israel counted bodies, bomb craters and bad decisions.

As for Iran, agreeing to the ceasefire wasn’t so much an act of peace as it was strategic survival. You get your nuclear facilities obliterated, your radar systems fried, and your airports turned into no-fly zones, suddenly handshakes seem like a good idea. Israel? Well, they did what they’ve always done — strike hard, claim self-defense, and let Washington foot the PR bill.

So here we are. Trump walks offstage with the illusion of having saved the world from the war he practically gift-wrapped. Cue the applause. Cue the reelection ads. Cue the photo op where he signs the ceasefire agreement like it’s a celebrity autograph.

But let’s not kid ourselves. This wasn’t peace. This was power projection disguised as diplomacy. It was a testosterone-fueled TikTok moment with real-world body counts. The only real winners were weapons manufacturers and, of course, Trump’s ego.

Because in the end, the war wasn’t about Iran or Israel. It was about who gets to look strong while the world trembles. Spoiler alert: He wears too-long ties, tans too dark, and tweets in all caps.

Email: mannyangeles27@gmail.com