President Trump on Sunday floated the idea that the U.S. could "stay and keep the oil" in Iran, comparing the notion to the U.S.'s major oil deal with Venezuela. Trump told reporters while in Doonbeg, Ireland, that the conflict with Iran will "end after the midterm" elections and that the Iranian regime "wants to make...
Page F2From§Eachthe early evening edition — 13 September 2026
Trump floats keeping Iran's oil like Venezuela's, but the win that lowers gas prices waits until after midterms.
As it ran on the front
The Exit Strategy died Sunday in Doonbeg, Ireland, when the President, asked about the war with Iran, said the United States could simply "stay and keep the oil," and noted, helpfully, that this was the same idea as the Venezuela deal. It is survived by the doctrine that a war doesn't end so much as relocate its paperwork, and it was preceded in death by the version of itself that ran in Venezuela, where 65 billion barrels of reserves arrived ledgered alongside 21 terror designations, and diplomacy did the leaving in a box marked national security.
The obituary runs long, because the family has been through this before. In August, on Truth Social, the President wrote that Venezuelan oil would begin a "topping out" process for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which he said Sleepy Joe Biden had left empty — a gift, he called it, from Venezuela to the American people. Within days that gift was recast by critics as an energy crisis of the President's own making, used as cover for the very resource grab it was supposed to fix. Sunday's remarks in Ireland took the recasting and made it policy: staying, not winning, is now the plan spoken plainly, with the reporters standing right there.…
…(cont) Earlier this month, the President promised oil prices would drop "precipitously" once the Iran war is won. Days later, in that same conversation where he floated keeping Iran's oil, he said the conflict would end "after the midterm" elections — a date on the calendar, not a victory on the record, and the only one filed so far. Nothing in the ledger says the war has been won; nothing in the ledger, then, says the price was ever due to have dropped by now. What the ledger does say, twice, in two countries, is that whenever winning arrives, it arrives itemized, with the oil underneath already spoken for.
Whippersnappers used to ask the government what winning would look like, expecting an answer about borders or elections. The paper's answer, filed a second time this season, is simpler: winning looks like whatever gets the reserves through customs first. The war ends when the ledger says it does, and the ledger, so far, only ever adds a line.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks that any future oil arrangement — Venezuelan, Iranian, or whichever comes next — be published in dollars, to the public whose reserves are being topped out, before the topping begins.
“Same script, new country: grab the oil, call it protection, promise it'll save you money at the pump someday — and someday just got moved past the midterms. They're not fighting a war for you, they're running a layaway plan on the ground underneath somebody else's country, and your gas bill is the payment schedule. Watch what they call "winning" once the oil's already out of the ground.”
“Look, the President is talking about protecting a strategic asset during an active conflict — that's leadership, not a land grab. He said prices drop "precipitously" once we win, and winning takes the time it takes — there's no clock on that, so nothing's actually overdue. Did I just argue there's no deadline on victory? That's... not the note I wanted to end on, strike that.”
The receipts
· 'Mobster Language': Trump Says Venezuelan Oil Will Replenish US Reserves from the morgue, 30 Aug 2026
· Trump Accused of Using Iran War Energy Crisis as 'Cover for a Resource Grab' in Venezuela from the morgue, 31 Aug 2026
· Trump: Oil prices 'will drop precipitously' after Iran war win from the morgue, 8 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.