Imagine If Obama Had Done This

For a man who once characterized Donald Trump as a “race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot” worthy of being ISIS’s “man of the year,” Lindsey Graham took a rather tame jab at the president recently. The Republican senator, now one of Trump’s top allies in Congress, argued on Tuesday that the Iranian government had detected “weakness” in the president’s “measured” decision in June to call off retaliatory military strikes against Iran, which emboldened the Iranians to execute “an act of war” by attacking oil facilities in Saudi Arabia.

But it was just enough to stir up @realDonaldTrump. Fast and furious came the counter-tweet: “No Lindsey, it was a sign of strength that some people just don’t understand!”

The exchange was a faint sign that a Republican crack-up on foreign policy could be coming over Iran in a way it hasn’t yet, incredibly enough, over the president’s approach to Afghanistan, Hong Kong, NATO, North Korea, or Russia, and beyond. On such issues, Trump hasn’t so much remade the Grand Old Party ideologically as he