India, April 17 -- In foreign policy, like in life, never let friends dictate your posture. The interests of your friends, even your closest ones, will not be identical to yours. At times, there can be a trade-off involved, for give-and-take is essential in diplomacy just like in any human interaction. But letting friends force or manipulate you to agree to their objective and get you to endorse and enable actions to achieve that objective - even if you know that objective is unattainable and is destroying your reputation globally and weakening you internally in the process - defies common sense.

Yet, that's exactly what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has succeeded in doing to United States (US) President Joe Biden. Or, to put...