Timothy Birdnow

Bookworm makes the following observation:

Am I the only one who understands that @realDonaldTrump is letting the Iranians know he’s a mad dog who’s just barely leashed and that, if they act up again, the leash will break?

— Bookwormroom (@Bookwormroom) June 21, 2019

The longer version goes back to a theory I developed when George Bush was president. Back then, the Lefties on my feed all called Bush a "cowboy,” meaning that he was a stupidly loose cannon who might do anything, at any time. Back then, I argued that Bush’s actions were, in fact, very restrained, but that there was a virtue to being perceived as a loose cannon. It made him unpredictable and, to our enemies, threatening.

Trump cultivates a different, albeit equally unpredictable and dangerous, image: He’s the attack dog, constantly barking ferociously, anxious to charge his enemies and rip out their jugulars. The only thing holding him back is the leash that his more mature advisers are able to tug on, just barely, in order to restrain his killer, otherwise-unmanageable instincts.

This seems to be a successful pose. After all, it was his insouciant, killer dog bomb-dropping during a dinner with Chairman Xi that probably brought Kim Jong-un to the negotiating table. On the one hand, Kim is the premier of a despicable, deadly totalitarian system, and has apparently participated fully in that system, whether because he believes in it or because it’s the only way to stay alive in a tank full of fanatical communist alligators. On the other hand, Kim is also a guy who was raised in the West, who likes his creature comforts, and who doesn’t want to die. He worries that Trump might kill him and that’s an incentive to negotiate.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 08:11 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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