Back in 2012, President Barack Obama issued a statement at a press conference that would change his presidency and his legacy forever.
It was a year into what would become Syrian leader Bashar al-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 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 out-maneuvered by a regime that’s been planning a war of contrition 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.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.