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.

If Iran succeeds in obtaining nuclear weapons, the war in Gaza, let alone the protests on college campuses, will seem like a minor complication. Jonathan Schachter fears that this danger could be much more imminent than decisionmakers in Jerusalem and Washington believe. In his view, Israel seems to be repeating the mistake that allowed it to be taken by surprise on Simchat Torah of 2023 and Yom Kippur of 1973: putting too much faith in an intelligence concept that could be wrong.

Israel and the United States apparently believe that despite Iran’s well-documented progress in developing capabilities necessary for producing and delivering nuclear weapons, as well as its extensive and ongoing record of violating its international nuclear obligations, there is no acute crisis because building a bomb would take time, would be observable, and could be stopped by force. Taken together, these assumptions and their moderating impact on Israeli and American policy form a new Iran concept reminiscent of its 1973 namesake and of the systemic failures that preceded the October 7 massacre.

Meanwhile, most of the restrictions put in place by the 2015 nuclear deal will expire by the end of next year, rendering the question of Iran’s adherence moot. And the forces that could be taking action aren’t:

The European Union regularly issues boilerplate press releases asserting its members’ “grave concern.” American decisionmakers and spokespeople have created the unmistakable impression that their reservations about the use of force are stronger than their commitment to use force to prevent an Iranian atomic bomb. At the same time, the U.S. refuses to enforce its own sanctions comprehensively: Iranian oil exports (especially to China) and foreign-currency reserves have ballooned since January 2021, when the Biden administration took office.

Israel’s response has also been sluggish and ambiguous. Despite its oft-stated policy of never allowing a nuclear Iran, Israel’s words and deeds have sent mixed messages to allies and adversaries—perhaps inadvertently reinforcing the prevailing sense in Washington and elsewhere that Iran’s nuclear efforts do not present an exigent crisis.