Citing the adage that you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression, John Hannah argues that the next president will have at most six months to show the rest of the world what sort of leader he or she will be. Making the correct impression will be especially important given the current disarray of American foreign policy. To this end, Hannah offers some recommendations:

Maintain a long-term troop presence in Iraq even after Islamic State’s caliphate is destroyed. . . . Communicate immediately to Iran through private channels that further threats to U.S. naval vessels in the Persian Gulf will no longer be tolerated. The next time Iranian gunboats swarm one of our ships, they will face lethal force. And should Iran fail to heed that warning, follow through decisively and be prepared to escalate accordingly—and disproportionately.

Additionally, make sure the Israeli prime minister is among the first foreign leaders received at the White House and leave no doubt that the days of public backbiting and “distancing” from America’s most important and capable Middle Eastern ally are over. While relying on the State Department and other relevant agencies to maintain active diplomacy with China, Russia, and even Iran, focus the bulk of the president’s personal diplomatic energies during the first year on consolidating relations with allied nations—in NATO, the Middle East, and Asia, including trips to each region, if possible.

The message should be unmistakable: maintaining the strength and vitality of America’s alliances is at the center of our global strategy, not propitiating those who mean us harm. The distinction between the two sets of actors should be clear—and certainly not turned on its head as has too often been the perception under President Obama.

Another point of differentiation from the Obama team: try to do as much of this as possible without trashing the previous administration, especially overseas. Let the actions speak for themselves. Also: no more apologizing for past U.S. failures or alleged transgressions.

Two extraordinary events demonstrate something important about Israel’s most fervent adversaries. One was a speech given at something called The People’s Forum (funded generously by Goldman Sachs), which stated, “When the state of Israel is finally destroyed and erased from history, that will be the single most important blow we can give to destroying capitalism and imperialism.”

The suggestion that this tiny state is the linchpin of a global, centuries-old phenomenon like capitalism goes well beyond anything resembling rational criticism. Even if Israel were guilty of genocide, apartheid, and oppression—which of course it is not—it would not follow that its destruction would help end capitalism or imperialism.

The other was an anti-Israel protest that took place in front of New York City’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, deemed “complicit” in Israel’s evils. At organizers’ urging, participants shouted their slogans at kids in the cancer ward, who were watching from the windows. Given Hamas’s indifference toward the lives of Gazan children, such callousness toward non-Palestinian children from Hamas’s Western allies shouldn’t be surprising. The protest—like the abovementioned speech—deliberately conveyed the message that Israel is the ultimate evil and its destruction the ultimate good, cancer patients be damned.

The fact that Israel’s adversaries are almost comically perverse does not mean that they can be dismissed. If its allies fail to understand the obsessive and irrational hatred that it faces, they cannot effectively help it defend itself.