Back in 2012, President Barack Obama issued a statement at a news conference that would change his presidency and his legacy forever.
It was a year into what would become Syrian leader Bashar Assad’s brutal and protracted war on his own people, a war that would cost hundreds of thousands of lives, empower Iran and Russia and destabilize much of the region.
Obama said then of U.S. intervention, “We have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to the other players on the ground, that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus. That would change my equation.”
But, of course, it didn’t.
In August 2013, Assad ordered a devastating sarin gas attack in Ghouta which killed at least 1,400 people, many of them children. It was a defiant and indefensible move that clearly crossed our red line.
Obama at first announced there would be a targeted military strike in response, but ultimately decided to pivot to a diplomatic deal, reaching a much-derided agreement with Russia to dismantle Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile.
Syria hailed the move as a “historic American retreat,” and to this day, foreign policy experts argue that Obama’s capitulation weakened America’s credibility abroad. Even Obama has expressed his regrets over Syria, and what New York Times columnist Nick Kristof called “his worst mistake.”
When a president speaks, the world listens … and learns. And our current president is realizing that the hard way.
President Donald Trump’s ill-conceived war in Iran has dragged on for more than 100 days now and shows no signs of concluding. That’s not merely because Trump seems totally outmaneuvered by a regime that’s been planning a war of attrition with the U.S. for nearly 20 years, but because he is no longer believed.
For nearly a decade, Trump has been threatening Iran with an often bellicose and cartoonish mix of social media threats, warnings and ultimatums. Back in his first term, he threatened to target 52 Iranian cultural sites (and then backed down); he threatened Iranian “obliteration” via Twitter (and then backed down); and he posted in all caps, “CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE” (and then backed down).
And again in his second term, since starting the war, Trump’s issued more threats: “A civilization will die, never to be brought back again,” and “hell will reign down on [Iran].” He’s threatened the “complete demolition” of Iran’s power plants, oil wells, and bridges and to bomb the country “back to the Stone Age.”
Trump’s threatened to stop and start the war countless times, and this week, Fox’s Trey Yingst shared that he’s once again threatening to “bomb the sh*t” out of Iran if they fail to reach a peace deal, a deal Trump has been promising since the start of the war three months ago was “close.” Thursday morning, Trump threatened to bomb Iran’s defense systems and “assume total control of its oil and gas markets.”
To be clear, Trump’s threats of genocide are totally inappropriate and may even enter war crimes territory, but his lack of follow-through has also emboldened Iran. They’ve watched Trump issue threat after threat for years, while fumbling through both diplomatic and military channels to reach some kind of deal that would help the U.S. save face. Meanwhile, we are no closer to a nuke-free Iran, a liberated Iranian people or regime change than we were before the war started.
On the global stage, not only isn’t he feared, he’s not even believed anymore. What this means for Iran is anyone’s guess. But if past is prologue, “Trump Always Chickens Out” — TACO — could end up defining his legacy more than anything else.
S.E. Cupp is the host of “S.E. Cupp Unfiltered” on CNN.