Noting that the presidential candidate has expressed contempt for NATO, that several of his advisers have close ties with Vladimir Putin, and that Putin’s court philosopher Aleksandr Dugin has endorsed him, Robert Zubrin argues that a Trump administration is likely to adopt the current White House’s callous attitude toward U.S. alliances. Zubrin takes Poland and Israel as his prime examples:

Russian military [threats] against Poland and the Baltic states were greatly enhanced by the failure of the Obama administration to honor America’s commitment to defend Ukraine with more than token support. Trump’s adviser Carter Page, however, has attacked Obama for defending Ukraine too strongly. . . .

Another country that a Trump administration would place in existential danger is Israel. While Trump’s statement that he would act as a neutral arbiter between Israel and the Palestinians has received some attention, the much greater threat to the Jewish state comes from Trump’s desire to align America with Putin’s Russia. This is so because Russia’s Middle East strategy is centered on building up an Iranian empire stretching from Lebanon to Afghanistan as a powerful junior partner to Moscow in the planned Eurasian bloc. . . .

Consistent with his pro-Putin tilt, Trump has stated that the United States should back the Russian-Iranian client Bashar al-Assad, as [President Obama has]. Thus a Trump administration offers Israel the terrifying prospect of a nuclear-armed Iranian regional hegemon, stretching from the Mediterranean Sea to the Hindu Kush, backed by Russia and unopposed by the United States. A Trump presidency could lead to the end of Poland’s independence and of Israel’s existence.

Analyzing the recent direct Iranian attack on Israel, and Israel’s security situation more generally, Michael Oren looks to the 2015 agreement to restrain Iran’s nuclear program. That, and President Biden’s efforts to resurrect the deal after Donald Trump left it, are in his view the source of the current crisis:

Of the original motivations for the deal—blocking Iran’s path to the bomb and transforming Iran into a peaceful nation—neither remained. All Biden was left with was the ability to kick the can down the road and to uphold Barack Obama’s singular foreign-policy achievement.

In order to achieve that result, the administration has repeatedly refused to punish Iran for its malign actions:

Historians will survey this inexplicable record and wonder how the United States not only allowed Iran repeatedly to assault its citizens, soldiers, and allies but consistently rewarded it for doing so. They may well conclude that in a desperate effort to avoid getting dragged into a regional Middle Eastern war, the U.S. might well have precipitated one.

While America’s friends in the Middle East, especially Israel, have every reason to feel grateful for the vital assistance they received in intercepting Iran’s missile and drone onslaught, they might also ask what the U.S. can now do differently to deter Iran from further aggression. . . . Tehran will see this weekend’s direct attack on Israel as a victory—their own—for their ability to continue threatening Israel and destabilizing the Middle East with impunity.

Israel, of course, must respond differently. Our target cannot simply be the Iranian proxies that surround our country and that have waged war on us since October 7, but, as the Saudis call it, “the head of the snake.”