In his new book, American Covenant, Yuval Levin explains how the Constitution can help the United States repair its deeply broken political culture. Levin, in this conversation with Tunku Varadarajan, also has some insights into how the same lessons might apply to Israel, the land of his birth:

I think Israel in some ways has exactly what the United States lacks—and lacks exactly what the United States has. Israel has a lot of solidarity. There’s a real national feeling in Israel, a sense of national belonging that is very real in people’s lives. But the institutions of Israel’s government are weak. They make no sense at all. They’re barely thought through. And Israel has managed to avoid disaster despite having so little institutional structure because of its solidarity.

The United States has much less social solidarity, but it has very strong and well-conceived institutions. I think, in a funny way, the last few years have forced me to ask which of these is better than the other. They’re both problems. And both countries feel those problems intensely.

There’s an interesting sense of precariousness about Israel’s existence that used to be true of 19th-century America. If you think about the American national anthem, it’s from 1814. It’s just a song about surviving the night. It’s not a song of triumph and victory. It’s a song of amazement at the very existence of our society. And Israel is very much like that. Israel’s national anthem too. It’s a song of hope about someday creating Israel. That’s a very odd way to think about yourself, but I think there is a connection between these ways of a new nation conceiving of itself.

On the same day the cease-fire went into effect along the Israel-Lebanon border, rebel forces launched an unexpected offensive, and within a few days captured much of Aleppo. This lightening advance originated in the northwestern part of the country, which has been relatively quiet over the past four years, since Bashar al-Assad effectively gave up on restoring control over the remaining rebel enclaves in the area. The fighting comes at an inopportune moment for the powers that Damascus has called on for help in the past: Russia is bogged down in Ukraine and Hizballah has been shattered.

But the situation is extremely complex. David Wurmser points to the dangers that lie ahead:

The desolation wrought on Hizballah by Israel, and the humiliation inflicted on Iran, has not only left the Iranian axis exposed to Israeli power and further withering. It has altered the strategic tectonics of the Middle East. The story is not just Iran anymore. The region is showing the first signs of tremendous geopolitical change. And the plates are beginning to move.

The removal of the religious-totalitarian tyranny of the Iranian regime remains the greatest strategic imperative in the region for the United States and its allies, foremost among whom stands Israel. . . . However, as Iran’s regime descends into the graveyard of history, it is important not to neglect the emergence of other, new threats. navigating the new reality taking shape.

The retreat of the Syrian Assad regime from Aleppo in the face of Turkish-backed, partly Islamist rebels made from remnants of Islamic State is an early skirmish in this new strategic reality. Aleppo is falling to the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS—a descendant of Nusra Front led by Abu Mohammed al-Julani, himself a graduate of al-Qaeda’s system and cobbled together of IS elements. Behind this force is the power of nearby Turkey.