Last week, Donald Trump’s transition team announced that it has chosen Nikki Haley—the governor of South Carolina and a fierce critic of the president-elect—to be the next ambassador to the United Nations. This bodes well, writes Noah Rothman:

Haley’s ascension represents a repudiation of the kind of heedless isolationism represented by both the “paleoconservative” right and the revisionist progressive left. . . . [But the even more important] signal telegraphed by the selection of Governor Haley to lead the American mission to the UN is the due disdain it conveys for an ambassadorial culture . . . that views the diplomatic process as an end in itself. . . .

The United Nations has become a cesspit of contemptible anti-Americanism that serves only to give authoritarian nations undue influence over the course of global affairs. Its legations rewrite history so as to edit Jews out of Jerusalem. Its human-rights commission elects by secret ballot human-rights violators like Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya and Saudi Arabia to lead. It is the font of scandals, including the abuse of the Iraqi Oil-for-Food program and the allegations that the UN covered up the sexual abuse of minors by peacekeepers in war zones. The United Nations regularly infringes on U.S. sovereignty by imposing on it climate regulations, restrictions on maritime navigation rights, and attacks on American freedoms in the Bill of Rights.

Will Nikki Haley make a good ambassador to the United Nations, whatever that means? It’s difficult to say. She will, however, be a welcome departure from a corrupting culture.

Early Friday morning, Israel attacked military installations near the Iranian cities of Isfahan and nearby Natanz, the latter being one of the hubs of the country’s nuclear program. Jerusalem is not taking credit for the attack, and none of the details are too certain, but it seems that the attack involved multiple drones, likely launched from within Iran, as well as one or more missiles fired from Syrian or Iraqi airspace. Strikes on Syrian radar systems shortly beforehand probably helped make the attack possible, and there were reportedly strikes on Iraq as well.

Iran itself is downplaying the attack, but the S-300 air-defense batteries in Isfahan appear to have been destroyed or damaged. This is a sophisticated Russian-made system positioned to protect the Natanz nuclear installation. In other words, Israel has demonstrated that Iran’s best technology can’t protect the country’s skies from the IDF. As Yossi Kuperwasser puts it, the attack, combined with the response to the assault on April 13,

clarified to the Iranians that whereas we [Israelis] are not as vulnerable as they thought, they are more vulnerable than they thought. They have difficulty hitting us, but we have no difficulty hitting them.

Nobody knows exactly how the operation was carried out. . . . It is good that a question mark hovers over . . . what exactly Israel did. Let’s keep them wondering. It is good for deniability and good for keeping the enemy uncertain.

The fact that we chose targets that were in the vicinity of a major nuclear facility but were linked to the Iranian missile and air forces was a good message. It communicated that we can reach other targets as well but, as we don’t want escalation, we chose targets nearby that were involved in the attack against Israel. I think it sends the message that if we want to, we can send a stronger message. Israel is not seeking escalation at the moment.