This might sound old-fashioned, but even if you beat up foreign leaders in speeches or tweets intended for domestic consumption, you can still endeavor to negotiate with them on friendlier terms in private. Why, I ask my progressive friends, can we not do that in Saudi Arabia? Why can we have an ambassador to China, or to Russia even, but not Saudi Arabia? Why can the president sit down with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro—a man who fervently and loudly asserts that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump—yet not MBS?

Almost my entire professional life—ever since I first put on an Army uniform during the infamous “dual containment” years—has been shaped by an American commitment to the Middle East that has demanded more blood and treasure than the region deserves. I marched off to a disastrous war in 2003 based in part on allegedly values-based arguments that make me cringe when I reread them today.

Biden, for his part, is sacrificing his values today in the interests of something we haven’t seen much of in the past two decades: realism.

And as unpopular as it may be among people I respect, I’m okay with that.