Stephen E. Herbits is an American businessman, former consultant to several Secretaries and Deputy Secretaries of Defense, executive vice president and corporate officer of the Seagram Company, advisor to the President's Advisory Commission on Holocaust Assets, and secretary general of the World Jewish Congress. He was the youngest person to be appointed commissioner on the Gates Commission. Herbits' career has specialized in "fixing" institutions – governmental, business, and not-for-profit – with strategic planning and management consulting.
I have had the unique privilege of working with the Defense Department on six presidential-level transitions, in addition to holding two non-transition posts within the Department.
Simply stated, Senator Tommy Tuberville’s puerile, anti-democratic behavior is seriously degrading our national security every single day, an issue clearly shown as related to the current crisis in the Middle East.
His tactic is a blockade of all general officer promotions (excepting the three on which he caved to unimaginable pressure) until the Department amends its abortion policy, a topic unrelated to the positions he is withholding. Such behavior is a form of extortion, holding our security for the ransom of the Senator’s personal views.
As nominations and assignments for General Officers of all the services require Senate confirmation, the process for accomplishing that has been in place for decades and has worked smoothly, even when there have been differences between the parties. But at no time has a single senator done such egregious damage to our national security. The result of tying up these nominations is that the best and brightest of our senior military are leaving their service prematurely, reducing the pool for promotion and therefore, the ultimate quality of our uniformed personnel. Anyone who has worked for any organization with promotion opportunities understands this notion.
Tuberville has created gaps in our talent pool at the most senior levels, requiring our Defense establishment to nominate officers with higher qualifications who may have spent over 30 years gaining needed experience, education, and further qualifications for the top posts. As the pyramid structure narrows, he forces out the most important personnel the taxpayers have spent decades preparing. Just as these senior officers have the most to offer our nation, he refuses to give the best of them the opportunity to do their jobs. Without opportunity for promotion, many officers will leave for the private sector just when we need them the most.
Having held up approximately 300 nominations for months on end, his actions are a disgrace to our democratic system of working with others in the Senate and coming up with a solution to the issues about which he is concerned. He is able to do this because of Senate rules, not laws nor Constitutional loopholes.
But it is not only Tuberville who should be ashamed.
The Minority Leader, Senator Mitch McConnell has tremendous power over his caucus removing Tuberville from all committees but has chosen to remain silent. However, it is not just the Republicans who are behaving badly. The current Majority Leader of the Senate, Chuck Schumer (D. NY) had two options at his disposal to address this behavior, which he has yet to utilize.
The first option would have been to attempt to amend the rules, perhaps for an agreed one-time use, to require that votes on military nominations may not be held up by a single Senator unless the reason relates directly to the person’s qualifications for the position for which he or she has been nominated.
Of course, that would require a simple majority vote, which puts Senators Kristen Sinema (I-AZ) and Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) on the spot. They don’t like changing rules, even if the rule change is reasonable and/or for one particular use, such as in the case for essential military nominations. If they are preventing this kind of rule change, then the voters in their states who consider our national security important should defeat them at the polls.
The Majority Leader had another option. After being unreasonably patient, he should have held the Senate in session at the end of July for seven days a week, 24-hours a day and dealt with each nomination separately if necessary. How long would the rest of the Senate tolerate this infringement on their summer recess before forcing Tuberville to end his blockade.
A solution is necessary now before any further damage is done to our national security and standing in the world. Tuberville’s actions must be stopped so that these essential military promotions can resume. Whatever option, or another if one is available, is necessary now. Tuberville’s petulance suggests he returns to getting paid for calling plays for football teams without damaging the rest of America.
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.