In 1984, one of Orwell’s characters explains that “doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.” There’s a less elegant, yet equally absurd, way to describe the behavior of a politician who expresses two contradictory beliefs at once. People do what they want, and retrofit their ideological justification after the fact. Israel’s war against Iran provides an unambiguous example of political doublethink. The United States is supporting Israel militarily, Trump called Israel’s attack “excellent,” and members of Congress from both major political parties have issued statements backing the Jewish state. Yet the same U.S. and political leaders support Ukraine. No two wars are identical, yet the circumstances of the Russo-Ukrainian War and the Israel-Iran conflict are remarkably analogous. Israel is to Iran as Russia is to Ukraine. Russia claimed that the Ukrainian government’s ideological extremism and increasing ties to anti-Russian regional allies, particularly its professed desire to join NATO, presented…