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Ukraine’s ammunition is running low, and its front-line positions are in danger of crumbling before a looming Russian offensive. The Senate passed a bill that included $60 billion in desperately needed aidfor Ukraine, but House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) still won’t give it a floor vote in the House. Why not? The explanation can be summarized in two words: Donald Trump. Johnson knows that the former (and possibly future) president’s most fervent followers stand ready to oust him if he dares to advance aid to Ukraine. If Nikki Haley were the presumptive Republican nominee, the aid package would have passed long ago.

In 1940 and 1941, America First isolationists argued that the United States should not help Britain resist the Nazi onslaught because it had no chance to prevail. “I have been forced to the conclusion that we cannot win this war for England, regardless of how much assistance we extend,” Charles Lindbergh said on April 23, 1941.

Public opinion surveys suggest that, while nearly 60 percent of Americans have a favorable view of the United Nations, they are less supportive than the citizens of many other countries. Forty percent of Americans have an unfavorable impression of the global body compared with 25 percent of Britons and Germans.

Friday has been was a dark day for freedom. In eastern Ukraine, Russian forces are on the verge of taking the city of Avdiivka after a months-long fight, thereby bringing closer Vladimir Putin’s goal of fully annexing yet another Ukrainian province — Donetsk. And in a Russian penal colony north of the Arctic Circle, Russia’s foremost dissident, Alexei Navalny, was pronounced dead at age 47.

A failure by the United States to continue military aid to Ukraine would spell disaster for Ukraine and its Western allies while emboldening Russia and other potential aggressors.

KYIV — I wish House Speaker Mike Johnson and other MAGA Republicans who have been holding up desperately needed aid to Ukraine could see what I just saw there. In particular, I wish they had been with me on Wednesday morning in Dnipro, a bustling city of about 1 million people in eastern Ukraine. If they had been, they might be less willing to betray the people of Ukraine in their desperate struggle for survival against a barbaric invader.

It’s been nearly four months since Israel launched Operation Swords of Iron in response to the horrific Hamas attack on Oct. 7. Yet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu still has failed to articulate a viable “day after” strategy for what happens if and when the guns fall silent. His latest dereliction may consign the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip to failure despite the bravery and dedication of ordinary Israeli soldiers.

It has become a cliché to say that every election is the most important of our lifetimes, but the looming contest between President Biden and former president Donald Trump really is. This will be a referendum not only on the future of American democracy but also on the future of America’s role in the world.

Sooner or later, it had to happen: Iran was going to cross a U.S. red line.

Since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel, Iranian-backed militias have escalated their attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria who are assisting with continuing operations against the Islamic State. There were at least 160 such attacks in less than four months involving drones and rockets. About 70 U.S. personnel had been wounded — including in a Jan. 20 missile attack on a giant air base in Iraq’s Anbar province — but none killed.

Whichever genius in the congressional Republican caucus decided to condition aid to Ukraine on the passage of a comprehensive immigration overhaul deserves a medal … from the Kremlin. House Republicans are giving every indication that they will torpedo any immigration deal that gets done in the Senate because it won’t meet their maximalist, close-the-border demands. That will then give them the perfect excuse not to pass any further funding for Ukraine.

As Israel’s war against Hamas passed the 100-day mark, Israelis struggled to understand how their country could be accused of carrying out genocide in a war they did not start. If any party to the conflict is guilty of attempted genocide, it is Hamas. This terrorist organization, which is explicitly dedicated to the destruction of the Jewish state, has carried out terrible war crimes, including the murder of Israeli civilians, the kidnapping of more than 200 Israelis (including old people and young children), and the widespread use of rape and sexual violence against Israeli girls and women. Yet last week it was Israel, not Hamas, that found itself in the dock at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

One of the most lamentable — and, to an outsider, inexplicable — features of Washington life is the political and press pile-on when some public figure has made a mistake, however minor. Before long, the Beltway cognoscenti are acting as if some soon-to-be-forgotten incident is a combination of Teapot Dome, Watergate, Iran-contra and Jan. 6, 2021, all wrapped into one.

Congressional leaders reached an agreement Sunday on a $1.66 trillion budget deal, raising hopes of averting a partial government shutdown later this month. Now it is imperative that Congress reach an agreement on a foreign aid bill that, in addition to funding for Israel and Taiwan, includes roughly $64 billion in vital military, economic and humanitarian support for Ukraine. U.S. funds for Ukraine have run out. If Congress fails to act, the implications for Ukraine and the world are terrifying.

At first glance, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza don’t appear to have much in common. The fight in Ukraine is a conventional conflict pitting two states against each other, while the Gaza War pits a conventional military against a terrorist organization. Yet, as I’ve been talking in recent weeks with current and retired U.S. generals and civilian analysts who are studying both conflicts, I have concluded that they actually reinforce many of the same lessons. Those are lessons that the U.S. military urgently needs to internalize.

All the way back in 2019, Benjamin Netanyahu became Israel’s longest-serving prime minister. In the past year, since assuming his nation’s highest office for the third time, he has cemented his reputation as Israel’s worst prime minister. And now, by picking a needless and reckless fight with President Biden, Israel’s closet ally, he is only compounding the damage that he is doing to his own country.

It’s not often that I feel ashamed to be an American. But I was ashamed this week when the Senate refused to support a supplemental spending bill that would provide about $61 billion in urgently needed aid for Ukraine (along with $14 billion for Israel and $20 billion for border security). All of the Senate Republicans, even those who have previously supported Ukraine funding, voted to filibuster the bill. Their stated position: They won’t provide a penny for Ukraine unless Democrats agree to a sweeping, draconian overhaul of the United States’ immigration laws.

Napoleon Bonaparte’s career as a conqueror lasted a mere 22 years. It began in 1793, when, as a junior artillery officer, he masterminded the successful French attack on the British garrison holding the port of Toulon. After this initial victory, he was promoted, at age 24, to brigadier general. Only six years later, he became, as first consul, ruler of France — and soon of much of Europe. His career ended in 1815 when he met, well, his Waterloo and went into exile on the remote island of St. Helena before dying in 1821, still only 51 years old. But the debate over his legacy has now lasted more than 200 years and shows no sign of abating.

Israel’s forces have moved to control the northern Gaza Strip but face challenges in tracking Hamas fighters into tunnels. Meanwhile, the costs for Palestinian civilians are intensifying pressure on Israeli leaders.

It has been more than six weeks since the barbaric Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7 — Israel’s 9/11 — and more than three weeks since the Israel Defense Forces began ground operations in the Gaza Strip. How is this war going? From my vantage point, it can be summed up as follows: Israel is winning the ground war while losing the battle for international public opinion — and failing to formulate a plan for what comes after the guns fall silent.

Predicting the decline of U.S. power has always been fashionable. Only the identity of the country that was supposedly going to overtake us has changed: Once, it was the Soviet Union, then it was Japan, and now it’s China. But despite years of costly fiascoes — from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to the 2008 financial market crash to the mishandling of the covid-19 pandemic to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection — the United States still stands as the world’s sole superpower.