German Justice Minister Marco Buschmann said the quiet part out loud: Germany’s refusal to admit that relying on Russia for natural gas helped Russia invade Ukraine.

It’s not exactly a revelation; any sentient being could draw a line from German’s approval of the Nord Stream II pipeline after Russia’s previous invasion of Ukraine and seizure of Crimea and the current war. Germany’s buckling to Russia after the first invasion and agreement to send tons of money to the kleptocracy clearly gave Russia a green light to grab more of the country. And Germany’s self-imposed reliance on Russian gas raised the stakes enormously for Germany should it object to future Russian adventurism.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but Donald Trump was right when he warned Germany about relying on Russian gas. They laughed at him at the time, but unfortunately in this case The Donald got the last laugh.

I think everybody would have been pleased if Trump had turned out to be wrong. Unfortunately for the world, and Ukraine most of all, Trump was prescient. Not that it took a “stable genius” to see that handing over your country’s fortune and fate to a tyrant was a big mistake.

German Justice Minister Marco Buschmann acknowledged that Germany bears responsibility for the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine because it backed the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

“Knowing what we do today, the decision to pursue Nord Stream 2 following the annexation of Crimea in 2014 was Germany’s contribution to the outbreak of the war in Ukraine,” Buschmann said at the welcoming address of a G7 justice ministers meeting in Berlin.

He added that it is Germany’s duty to “confront this truth directly” and “draw the right conclusions” from it.

A version of Buschmann’s quote was also prominently shared on the justice ministry’s Twitter profile.

The statement indirectly goes against Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who had long defended the pipeline. As recently as December of last year, Scholz labeled Nord Stream 2 a “private-sector project.”

Trump repeatedly bashed German deals with Russia over Nord Stream II. Contrary to the “Trump is in Putin’s pocket” Narrative™, the opposite was clearly true to anybody who paid attention. It was the Germans who got into bed with Putin and they are paying a huge price for that mistake.

You may recall that Trump took Germany to task on the floor of the UN, taking direct aim at their ridiculous energy policies. The Germans literally laughed at his criticism, clearly believing that Trump was both a boor (he was and is) and that he was being outrageous (he is, but he was also very very right).

Trump made some outrageous claims about German energy at the UN — and the German delegation’s reaction was priceless pic.twitter.com/izpa2fKC3B

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) September 26, 2018

Everybody in The Elite™ was (and still are) totally convinced that they are always right, and boors like Trump are always wrong. They are Experts™ who are so wise that they could not possibly learn anything from a man like Trump or his followers.

This whole affair is a reminder that Trump, for all his flaws, actually was very good on a lot of policy matters. His foreign policy instincts in particular were mostly excellent, but his diplomacy skills were more along the lines of a 2nd grader. Not that Trump being a master of diplomacy would have mattered in the least. These jerks would never listen if he sang lullabies to them while bottle feeding them fine wine.

I am very very critical of Trump on so many things, but I think his foreign policy was pretty spot on. The Abraham Accords alone should earn him a Nobel Prize, if they were worth anything. Unfortunately our Elite™ awards such prizes to Obama, whose foreign policy was execrable. They awarded it to him for being pretty, well-spoken, and well groomed.

Trump, a bull in a china shop, was actually right more often than he was wrong in such matters. He brought peace between Israel and the Sunni Arab states.

Trump had the right enemies, except for one: himself.

He is his own worst enemy, and he will never defeat that enemy.