The Establishments war on Donald Trump
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Title: "President Badass"
Source:
National Review
URL Source: https://www.nationalreview.com/2025/06/president-badass/
Published: Jun 23, 2025
Author: Rich Lowry
Post Date: 2025-06-23 11:23:56 by Mudboy Slim
Keywords: None
Views: 21
Comments: 1
The word “badass” was bandied about a lot after the first assassination attempt on Donald Trump last year. Famously, the Republican candidate, bloodied and about to be carried off the stage by Secret Service, raised his fist in defiance. In a different context, the same pungent word applied to his devastating 2 a.m. strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. Trump the TV star and consummate performer has a knack for the theatrical and grand gesture. That obviously matters in domestic politics, but in international affairs, too, where projecting strength and command are just as important. We don’t know where the war heads from here and need to learn more about the damage that was inflicted. It may be that this all goes sideways, or that it wasn’t as effective as one assumes. Still, it was an operation with a distinct and very useful element of Trump badassery. It’s not that Trump always follows through on his many threats. He doesn’t, with his on-and-off “liberation day” tariffs an ongoing example of backing off and recalibrating. But when he makes good on a threat, it leaves a mark. He’s said how foreign adversaries in his first term didn’t always believe his threats 100 percent; they might believe him some percentage less than that, but it’d still be enough to make them wonder and potentially get them to moderate their behavior. After this, whatever that number is just went up another 30 percent or so. Trump’s signature military operations haven’t been particularly complex: smashing ISIS, killing Soleimani, bombing Fordow and other Iranian nuclear facilities. They haven’t required mustering big international coalitions or launching, say, amphibious landings. But they achieve an outsized effect thanks to the stark terms in which they are promised (e.g., bombing “the sh**” out of ISIS) or the sheer audacity of the operation. Killing Soleimani was a very limited action but one that was shocking all the same. Bombing Fordow and the other sites was also quite focused, but after they had been such a focus for discussion for so long, the operation came as a strategic thunderclap. One way to put it is that the “shock and awe” bombing campaign before the second Iraq war was much less awesome than advertised, and a prelude to a conflict that was much more complicated and drawn out than anticipated. Trump’s operations tend, in contrast, to be all shock and awe, and for real. Trying diplomacy before resorting to military action, as Trump did with Iran, is a very conventional way to go about business. But Trump’s distinctive style invests every twist and turn of talks with high drama and uncertainty, which made the denouement all the more stunning. There was a lot of discussion during Trump’s first term that he did things that any conventional Republican would have done (nominate conservative judges, cut taxes, etc.), yet there were things that Trump was willing to do that past presidents might have only talked about. Moving the embassy to Jerusalem was high on that list. The strike on the nuclear sites is moving the embassy times ten, in terms of its risk and practical effect. Maybe other Republican presidents would have done it. We can’t be sure. We do know that Trump did indeed haul off and do it. He represents the opposite of the approach associated with Robert McNamara during the Vietnam War. Basically, the former business executive and LBJ defense secretary believed that if you had enough talented managers in government, they could micromanage their way to success — complicated problems required complex analysis, shorn of a human element. The Trump method is to simplify everything and apply blunt-force solutions, undergirded by a very human psychology of dominance. To wit, Iran can’t have a nuclear bomb. Diplomacy would be ideal. But if it doesn’t work, military force will be necessary. Tinker to Evers to Chance. QED. Trump proved immune to any subtle and counterintuitive theories about Iran, displaying the attitude toward the regime that you’d expect of any commonsensical American who’s lived through the last 45 years. Another way to look at Trump’s strike is as the bookend of Desert One in 1980, Jimmy Carter’s misbegotten hostage rescue operation (formally known as Operation Eagle Claw). The failure of that attempt represented a humiliation that was another blow to our national self-confidence and was a symbol of the reduced state of the post-Vietnam U.S. military. It also spoke to the staying power of the Iranian regime at its inception and how it would be, going forward, largely immune to Western military action. This is the opposite. The strike showcased the remarkable reach and proficiency of the U.S. military, and a president willing to wield it as necessary. The operation may eventually — although this is less certain — be seen as a prelude to the end of a decrepit regime that is now extremely vulnerable to U.S. attack. Again, who knows how this all plays out, and it may be that there are unanticipated downsides. Trump is still trying to cajole the Iranians into a deal, although he posted about regime change on Sunday. The Iranians might believe that it’s merely bluster, but they need to take it more seriously than they did only a couple of days ago. Such is the effect of Trump’s badass move, and we should hope it is being felt not just in Tehran but in every capital of a country that wishes us harm.
The legend of Donald Trump grows.
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