Events of the past weekend, in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, provided a bleak portrait of the United States under President Donald Trump as an increasingly irrelevant power.

On Sunday, Iran fired ballistic missiles at Israel, ignoring Trump’s warnings to observe a ceasefire or face consequences. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired back, defying a personal phone call from Trump ordering him not to retaliate. More embarrassing still, Trump made public his call to Netanyahu, telling a Financial Times journalist, “I call the shots. I call all the shots. He doesn’t call the shots.”

On Monday morning, Iran and Israel both announced they would refrain from attacking each other, perhaps in response to more pleas from Trump by phone and social media. But Netanyahu’s pledge of restraint did not apply to Lebanon. An Israeli strike on Hezbollah targets in that country is what prompted the Iranians to launch missiles at Israel on Sunday, making clear that they regarded the wars on Hezbollah and Iran as two parts of the same conflict. The Iranians vowed to resume attacking Israel even more intensively if Israel resumed attacking Lebanon, so Trump’s belated success at public pressure may be short-lived.

Meanwhile, in Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky sent a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin suggesting that the two hold peace talks through “direct engagement”........

© Slate