Messages to and from Obama

Here was the American president, surrounded by an ultimately submissive team, deciding to go to war on gut feeling and with no visible concern for what it would mean beyond [U.S.] borders.

America’s Achilles’ heel is internal. If it loses this war, it will likely be because much of the media, politicians, and even some of Trump’s allies do not fully understand his policies.

Israel must reduce its military dependence on the United States as much as possible and deepen its technological, military and moral value in American eyes.

European autonomy - military, technological, economic, and financial - is beginning to take shape as Europe hedges against current and future fluctuations in [U.S.] policy.

The shift now underway is unlikely to take the form of a dramatic collapse of American power in the Gulf. It is more likely to be subtler and, for the region, more unsettling.