On Thursday, the newly appointed American ambassador to Turtle Bay gave a press conference following a routine Security Council meeting regarding the Middle East. The editors of the New York Sun were impressed:

The ex-governor of South Carolina was ridiculed by the left when the president first sent her nomination up to Capitol Hill, owing to her alleged lack of foreign-policy chops. She certainly rang the wake-up gong for that crowd this morning. . . . Tough as nails but with a smile and a layer of Southern charm.

The ambassador had just come from the regular monthly Security Council meeting on Middle East issues. She said it was her first such meeting, and “it was a bit strange.” The Security Council, she said, is supposed to discuss how to maintain international peace and security. But the meeting, she said, was not about Hizballah’s illegal buildup of rockets in Lebanon; it was not about the money and weapons Iran provides to terrorists; it was not about how we defeat Islamic State; it was not about how we hold Bashar al-Assad accountable for the slaughter of thousands of civilians. “No,” she said, “instead the meeting focused on criticizing Israel, the one true democracy in the Middle East.” . . .

The ambassador made clear that the Trump administration will not support the kind of resolution from which the Obama administration’s ambassador—Samantha Power—shamefully abstained. . . . [Haley] warned that it is “the UN’s anti-Israel bias that is long overdue for change,” and said America will not hesitate to speak out in defense of its friend in Israel.

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.”