Trump seals his ‘President Badass’ cred — and makes US foes think twice

But they achieve an outsized effect, thanks to the stark terms in which they are promised (e.g., bombing “the s–t” out of ISIS), or the sheer audacity of the operation. 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 grinding, drawn-out conflict. 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 US military.

Author: Rich Lowry

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