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.

While the far left and the extreme right have responded with frenzied outrage to Israel’s attacks on Iran, middle-of-the-road, establishment types have expressed similar sentiments, only in more measured tones. These think-tankers and former officials generally believe that Israeli military action, rather than nuclear-armed murderous fanatics, is the worst possible outcome. Garry Kasparov examines this mode of thinking:

Now that the Islamic Republic is severely weakened, the alarmist foreign-policy commentariat is apprising us of the unacceptable risks, raising their well-worn red flags. (Or should I say white flags?) “Escalation!” “Global war!” And the ultimate enemy of the status quo: “regime change!”

Under President Obama, American officials frequently stared down the nastiest offenders in the international rogues’ gallery and insisted that there was “no military solution.” “No military solution” might sound nice to enlightened ears. Unfortunately, it’s a meaningless slogan. Tellingly, Russian officials repeat it all the time too. . . . But Russia does believe there are military solutions to its problems—ask any Ukrainian, Syrian, or Georgian. Yet too many in Washington remain determined to fight armed marauders with flowery words.

If you are worried about innocent people being killed, . . . spare a thought for the millions of Iranians who face imprisonment, torture, or death if they dare deviate from the strict precepts of the Islamic Revolution. Or the hundreds of thousands of Syrians whose murder Iran was an accomplice to. Or the Ukrainian civilians who have found themselves on the receiving end of over 8,000 Iranian-made suicide drones over the past three years. Or the scores of Argentine Jews blown up in a Buenos Aires Jewish community center in 1994 without even the thinnest of martial pretexts.

The Democratic Connecticut senator Chris Murphy was quick and confident in his pronouncement that Israel’s operation in Iran “risks a regional war that will likely be catastrophic for America.” Maybe. But a regional war was already underway before Israel struck last week. Iran was already supporting the Houthis in Yemen, Hamas in Gaza, Hizballah in Lebanon, and Russia in Ukraine. Israel is simply moving things toward a more decisive conclusion.

Perhaps Murphy and his ilk dread most being proved wrong—which they will be if, in a few weeks’ time, their apocalyptic predictions haven’t come true, and the Middle East, though still troubled, is a safter place.