Mr. Trump’s strategy had some success in the Middle East. During his first term, Russia and China both established footholds in the Persian Gulf region. Moscow claimed Iran as a strategic ally and Syria as a client state, which hosted Russia’s only naval base in the Mediterranean. China, Iran’s largest oil market, purported to be building a diplomatic bridge between Tehran and Riyadh. Today, the Assad regime is gone, and Moscow’s S-300 air defense system proved completely ineffective in Tehran’s 12-day war with Israel. China watched from the sidelines as the U.S. and Israel pummeled its principal energy source, and Beijing has been shouldered out of Washington-led negotiations over both Gaza’s rebuilding and Iran’s nuclear program. This marked a clear win, even as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent efforts to tighten control over the West Bank, his government’s decreased policing of Israeli violence towards those living there, and his recalcitrance on moving forward with the Gaza cease-fire’s stages threaten to undermine America’s standing in the region.