So I’m curious about whether our Gulf and Israeli friends still feel as confident about this president as they did two weeks ago. If so, let me offer two big reasons why they should not.

The first is that the president is busily torching the same international alliances that have served as the backbone of U.S. power in the post-war era, and this will affect the ability of the United States to work in the Middle East.

In 2014, for example, largely through the hard work of Brett McGurk and other U.S. diplomats, the United States put together a coalition of 69 nations to defeat the Islamic State—which included literally every nation in Western Europe aside from Switzerland. At the very least, that coalition lent the United States legitimacy as it went about waging yet another military campaign in the Middle East. But many of these nations have made tangible contributions to the military campaign as well: As of two days ago, eight other countries apart from the United States and Iraq had conducted air strikes against the Islamic State in Iraq, and 11 other countries had done the same in Syria. These allies and partners help share the financial burden, as well, of a campaign that costs $13.1 million each day to execute.

Now try to imagine, if you will, President Trump putting together a similarly large and burden-sharing coalition in the Middle East.

The same goes for tricky diplomatic issues like Iran. The Obama administration was able to get each and every member of the UN Security Council—including Germany, and in addition to the European Union—on board with a strategy to retard the development of Iran’s nuclear program. Leaving the merits of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action aside, this was a remarkable diplomatic feat, which was complemented by the naval coalition the United States built to help intercept Iranian arms shipments as well as the multilateral sanctions regime the United States built to pressure Iran to the negotiating table.

Again, try to imagine this president’s ability to do the same should Iran begin to cheat on the deal or should Iran attempt to increase its other malign activity in the region.

Because working as part of broad coalitions has not been an option for Israel (after the Suez Crisis), and because our Gulf partners are only now beginning to operate as part of independent coalitions, neither the Israelis nor the Gulf partners fully appreciate how much the United States benefits from being the kind of country that others feel inclined to follow. And so they might not realize the cost of the things Donald Trump is now doing.

But there’s another reason neither the Israelis nor the Gulf Arabs should feel as comfortable about this president now as they did two weeks ago, and that reason is follow-up.

On the one hand, Israelis and Gulf Arab partners gush about the level of access they’re getting from this administration. And to the credit of the Trump administration, people like Deputy National Security Adviser Dina Powell, the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis indeed seem more willing than most to take a phone call or trade text messages after hours with their diplomatic partners.