Israel is Trumps ideal America First ally fighting its own battle vs. Iran

President Donald Trump’s posture on the Israel-Iran war is perplexing analysts accustomed to the United States as guarantor of peace and fighter of wars worldwide.In their traditional view, allowing Israel to launch an attack implicates the United States and leaves us responsible for ensuring its success and addressing any fallout.Trump’s coalition, divided between supporters of Israel’s action and opponents of any US entanglement in foreign conflicts, must be facing a serious fissure, they imagine.But the days of the United States presiding over a “liberal world order” are over.What we are seeing now is the rhetoric — and the wisdom — of “America First” become reality in the skies over Tehran.Promoters of the liberal world order believed that the United States could and should control events around the world.

They were enthusiastic about assuming the burden of security for our allies, because with that responsibility came the right to dictate the allies’ foreign policy.Other countries, accepting their status as client states in return for the promise of US defense, could be blocked from taking any action that would necessitate US defense.And, as client states with no independent capacity of their own, they’d have no ability to act independently — and thus no choice but to defer to US demands.An America First foreign policy scales back simultaneously the rights and the responsibilities that the United States asserts.Both must happen together: It would make no sense to declare that the US will no longer ride to everyone’s defense, but then still demand that everyone must do what the US wants.We would have no moral claim to such a position (why should countries listen to us if we are not shouldering their security burdens?) nor any way of enforcing it (or else what?).But the key is that the demand is no longer necessary.If the US is not on the hook for the fallout from the action another country takes, it need not worry so much about...