Surprising no one, The Wall Street Journal is all in favor of Trump’s terrible decision to recognize the Israeli claim to the Golan Heights:

Recognizing the Golan sends a message to Russia, Syria’s patron, that the U.S. recognizes that the civil war has changed Syrian reality. There is no returning to a nonexistent status quo ante. It also tells the Palestinians that a return to pre-1967 borders is no longer realistic. They will have to allow some Israeli security presence in what they call the “occupied territories” if they want a two-state solution in Palestine.

Trump’s recognition does send a message to Russia, but it is not the one that the hawkish editors think is being sent. Recognizing Israel’s illegal annexation of Syrian territory tells Russia that our government’s objections to Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea can be dismissed as little more than posturing. Trump’s decision confirms in the eyes of every other state that our government only claims to care about a “rules-based order” when it can be used to target certain regimes for punishment. The U.S. has always treated itself and its allies and clients differently and held other governments to a higher standard, but endorsing Israel’s illegal annexation breaks new ground in cynical disregard for international law.

It is grimly amusing that the WSJ editors claim that Trump’s decision is merely “recognizing the Middle East as it is.” They usually have no interest in realism or acknowledging the way things really are, and they support this decision because it lines up with their ideological preferences of backing Israel to the hilt and stoking tensions with Iran. Of course, granting recognition to an illegal annexation is not simply recognizing things as they are. It is an act aimed at legitimizing an illegitimate status quo. The purpose of extending recognition to another state’s illegal annexation is not to acknowledge reality, but to try to change it. The legal reality for more than fifty years is that the Golan Heights belong to Syria, and for more than fifty years the U.S. has acknowledged that reality. Trump’s decision was intended to grant ideologues and hard-liners one of the things from their wish list. Like everything else in Trump’s “principled realism,” this decision was neither principled nor realistic.