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The tinderbox that is the Middle East threatens to explode again. Consider what has happened in the last weeks: a direct military exchange in Syria between Israel and Iran; the President’s walk away from the JCPOA, the Iran nuclear deal; the opening of the American embassy in Jerusalem; and the Hamas-driven demonstrations in Gaza that sought to breach the Israeli border but failed, resulting in dozens of Palestinian deaths.

None of these developments are likely to be limited in time or scope. If nothing else, they require a clear U.S. policy.

To date, what President Trump is offering is far more rhetorical than practical. It is too soon to know whether the arrival of a new secretary of state and national security adviser will change that.

But unless we start trying constructively to shape events rather than reacting to them, and soon, the reality in the Middle East will surely worsen — and likely suck the United States in under worse circumstances.

Before we dive into the present conundrum, let’s step back and assess the American approach to the region in recent years. For understandable reasons, both the Obama and Trump administrations have focused heavily on defeating ISIS. That fight was necessary, and, particularly over the past year, has paid dividends.

But while our attention was riveted on ISIS, Iran has been expanding its reach. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei now refers to Syria and Lebanon as part of Iran’s forward defense. Iran is not just entrenching itself in Syria, it is building a land bridge from Iran to the Mediterranean, going through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. It is using Shia militia proxies from as far away as Afghanistan and Pakistan in Syria.

Of course, Hezbollah remains its preferred proxy, with a presence of 7,000 fighters in Syria, and a training, weapons assembly, and military support role in Yemen and Iraq. Hezbollah works closely with the Qods Forces, the action arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, in all these areas. Iran’s material support for Hezbollah has varied — when it was under heavy UN sanctions it dropped to about $200 million a year and after the JCPOA it has risen back to roughly $800 million.

Trump likes to blame Obama’s Iran deal for all this Iranian meddling, but that’s a highly simplistic interpretation. The fact is, Iran has been getting more aggressive on Trump’s watch, and his administration has done next to nothing to stop it. In fact, by ceding much of Syria to Russia, on at least one front, he has helped embolden the mullahs in Tehran.

Iran’s preference for working through proxies and threatening others indirectly has been the norm. But in February of this year, the Qods Forces acted out of character: They sent an armed drone into Israeli airspace from Syria. By sending their own drone, the Qods Forces chose to challenge the Israelis directly.

Israel, recognizing that a threshold was being crossed, reacted by shooting down the drone and taking out the Iranian command-and-control vans that launched and guided drones from their T-4 base in central Syria. Upon losing one of its F-16s over Israeli airspace to a barrage of surface-to-air missiles, Israel then took out nearly half of Syria’s air defenses without losing any other aircraft. The Israelis were trying to signal the Iranians — and the Russians — that they would not tolerate Iran threatening them more directly.

But this was just a prelude to the more recent military exchange. On April 9, Israel hit a number of Iranian targets again — going after the Iranian capacity not simply to launch drones but missiles as well.

Israel’s practice has been never to acknowledge these strikes, understanding that to publicly take credit would put the Iranians in a position of having to respond or else lose face. But the Russians “outed” the Israelis — and this was significant because at least seven Qods Force officers were killed in the Israeli strike.

Knowing the Iranians might have to respond, the Russians chose to expose the Israelis anyway — no doubt signaling that they were not happy that they had not been forewarned when Russians were co-located at that base. Not surprisingly, the exposure led Iran to declare that it would retaliate.

That retaliation would come one day after President Trump withdrew from the JCPOA. The timing was not an accident. The Iranians withheld their action, not wanting it to be used by the Trump administration as a reason to leave the JCPOA — but once freed of that concern, they launched missiles at Israel.

Israel’s Iron Dome intercepted four Iranian missiles that penetrated Israeli airspace, with the remainder hitting in Syria. To prove the Iranians would pay a high price, the Israelis hit several Iranian and Shia proxy bases throughout Syria, destroying, in the words of Israel’s defense minister, Avigdor Lieberman, much of the Iranian military infrastructure in Syria.

For now, it is clear the Iranians are not interested in escalating further with Israel. The character of their retaliation — firing only at Israeli positions in the Golan Heights and not civilian targets in the country — is a clear indication of that. They are too busy consolidating their position in Syria to want to take on Israel at this stage.

But no one should be misled. Israel