The recent burst of recriminations about what the U.S. intelligence community did or did not tell the president of the United States in advance about the rise of the extremist group sometimes called ISIS, and about associated events in Iraq, is only a variation on some well-established tendencies in Washington discourse. The tendency that in recent years has, of course, become especially strongly entrenched is that of couching any issue in the way that is best designed to bash one’s political opponents. For those determined to bash and frustrate Barack Obama at every turn, it is a tendency that trumps everything else. Thus we now have the curious circumstance of some of Mr. Obama’s Republican critics, who in other contexts would be at least as quick as anyone else to come down on U.S. intelligence agencies (and most other parts of the federal bureaucracy) like a ton of bricks, saying that the president got good information but failed to act on it. (Some critics, however, have tried to lower their cognitive dissonance by saying that “everyone” could see what was coming with ISIS.)

Relationships between the intelligence community and presidential administrations over the past few decades have not fallen into any particular pattern distinguishable by party. One of the best relationships was with the administration of the elder George Bush—perhaps not surprisingly, given that president’s prior experience as a Director of Central Intelligence under President Gerald Ford. Probably the worst was during the presidency of the younger George Bush, whose administration—in the course of selling the Iraq War—strove to discredit the intelligence community’s judgments that contradicted the administration’s assertions about an alliance between Iraq and al-Qaeda, pushed for public use of reporting about alleged weapons programs that the community did not consider credible, and ignored the community’s judgments about the likely mess in Iraq that would follow the ouster of Saddam Hussein’s regime. Relations also have varied under Democratic presidents. Mr. Obama, given the evidently deliberate and methodical way he weighs input, including from the civilian and military bureaucracy, before major national security decisions, probably has been one of the better users of intelligence, at least in the sense of paying attention to it. His remark on 60 Minutes that led to the accusations about ISIS, however, did sound like gratuitous blame-shifting.

One very longstanding and bipartisan tendency that this recent imbroglio has diluted (because the political motive to attack Obama is even stronger than political motives to attack intelligence agencies) is to assume that any apparently insufficient U.S. reaction to an untoward development overseas must be due to policymakers not being sufficiently informed, and this must be because intelligence services failed. It is remarkable how, when anything disturbing goes bump in the night overseas, the label “intelligence failure” gets quickly and automatically applied by those who have no basis whatever for knowing what the intelligence community did or did not say—in classified, intra-governmental channels—to policymakers.

The current case does demonstrate in undiluted form, however, several other recurrent tendencies, one of which is to affix the label “surprise” to certain events not so much because of the state of knowledge or understanding of those who make national security policy but more because we, the public—and the press and chattering class—were surprised. Or to be even more accurate, this often happens because those of us outside government weren’t paying much attention to the developments in question until something especially dramatic seized our attention, even though we actually had enough information about the possibilities that we should not have been surprised. Thus the dramatic gains by ISIS earlier this year have been labeled a “surprise” because a swift territorial advance and gruesome videotaped killings grabbed public attention.

Another tendency is to believe that if government is working properly, surprises shouldn’t happen. This belief disregards how much that is relevant to foreign policy and national security is unknowable, no matter how brilliant either an intelligence service or a policymaker may be. This is partly because of other countries and entities keeping secrets but even more so because some future events are inherently unpredictable—given that they involve decisions that others have not yet made, or social processes too complex or psychological mechanisms too fickle to model. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper was referring to this epistemological reality in the comment that he made recently about the Iraqi army’s collapse and that the president erroneously characterized in his 60 Minutes interview. Clapper was not saying that the intelligence community messed up on this question; he instead was observing that this type of sudden loss of will in the heat of battle has always been unpredictable.

Yet another recurring tendency is to think that proper policy responses always flow from a good empirical understanding of the problem at hand, including the sort of information, analysis, and predictions that a well-functioning intelligence service might be expected to provide. In fact, proper responses often do not flow that way from an understanding of the problem. Often there are conflicting national interests at stake, there are serious costs and risks to possible responses, and the likely benefits of responses may not outweigh the likely costs. No matter how accurate a picture of ISIS the intelligence community may be providing to the president and his policy advisers, that picture is not likely to constitute a case for the United States to take more, rather than less, forceful action in Syria or Iraq. If President Obama is now taking more forceful measures in those places than he was earlier, it is neither because he is belatedly reacting to good intelligence nor because the intelligence community is belatedly getting its judgments right, but instead because he is responding to how the rest of us have decided that we are not just surprised but alarmed by ISIS.

This article was first published by the National Interest and was reprinted here with permission.

Martin Dempsey is not a popular man in the halls of the Israeli Prime Minister’s office these days. The Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff incurred the wrath of Benjamin Netanyahu by pointing out the obvious: an Israeli attack on Iran would have dire consequences.

Dempsey said “I don’t think a wise thing at this moment is for Israel to launch a military attack on Iran…” and such a strike “would be destabilizing” and “not prudent.”

Well, Bibi can’t have any of that. Imagine a US military leader talking sense about the potential of a military operation that would have global consequences. How dare he? Israel must respond to such an outrage, lest it fail in its effort to have the United States carry out this foolish attack on Israel’s behalf.

Israeli officials rushed to the visiting US National Security Adviser, Tom Donilon with their complaints about Dempsey’s statements. According to Ha’aretz, a senior Israeli official told Donilon that “The Iranians see there’s controversy between the United States and Israel, and that the Americans object to a military act. That reduces the pressure on them.”

The objection is overstated by a wide margin, and there’s a lot more going on here than the Israelis are talking openly about.

The “pressure” reduction Israeli officials are concerned about is only significant if the US is clearly opposed to an attack. This is not the case, either in the White House or in Congress. It is true the President sees an immediate attack as premature, but the threat of attack remains, even if the US and Israel are debating the timing.

Iran may see that the US doesn’t interpret the situation exactly as Israel does. However, the pressure remains high despite this because the threat of force from both countries is unchanged. The Israeli response is another example of what has become typical hysteria from the Netanyahu government.

In his four months in office, Dempsey has not been inclined to make a great many public statements about strategy and tactics with regard to Iran. That he did so now was not an accident.

We’re all well aware of the intense amount of debate going on in both the US and Israel over the question of an attack on Iran. Lines have been drawn on this issue, and many different pieces have come into play.

One of those pieces, in Washington, is the concern that if the US doesn’t strike Iran, Israel will, and that an Israeli strike would have even greater consequences for regional stability than an American one. This is certainly the case made to Donilon, and it is one that Defense Minister Ehud Barak has reinforced again recently.

There is also a bill, introduced in the Senate last week, S.Res.380, which is intended to greatly increase the pressure on President Barack Obama to take military action.

These are coordinated actions, with Israel not only using the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) as a go-between, but with Bibi and Barak also directly mobilizing their friends on Capitol Hill.

S.Res.380 is being pushed hard by AIPAC,  and it is a bill that is much more dramatic than it might seem at first blush.

The official description of the bill is telling: A resolution to express the sense of the Senate regarding the importance of preventing the Government of Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons capability.

The idea here is to move the red line for US military action from imminent Iranian acquisition of a nuclear device to Iran’s capability to build such a device, a level of nuclear technology that has other uses and that nations are entitled to pursue under the Non-Proliferation Treaty. From reports about Iranian capabilities, that could well be a threshold that it has already passed.

Here is how the National Iranian-American Council (NIAC) put it, in an excellent critique of the bill:

The Secretary of Defense stated in January 2012 that an Iranian attempt to actually build a nuclear weapon  is the United States’ “red line” that Iran must not cross.  But this resolution does not reflect or reinforce the “red line” articulated by the United States – it further confuses them.  As currently drafted, the resolution blurs the critical distinction between nuclear weapons capability and nuclear weapons acquisition.  Nuclear capable is an imprecise term with no clear definition. By some accounts, Iran could already be described as “nuclear capable,” as Iran already has the capability and expertise to build a nuclear weapon. It should continue to be the goal of the U.S and international community to use all non-military means at our disposal to put concrete constraints on Iran’s nuclear capabilities, with the ultimate objective of ensuring Iran does not actually acquire a nuclear weapon.

This, just as much as an independent Israeli strike, is what Dempsey was trying to counter.

Within the Israeli leadership as well, there is considerable opposition to an attack on Iran. Some reports indicate that a majority of the military leadership is opposed to an attack, and there are signals that evenNetanyahu is not convinced.

There had been speculation that Iran hawk Yohanan Locker would be appointed the head of the Israeli Air Forces. But Netanyahu chose Amir Eshel, who is considered to be more cautious about an attack on Iran, leading to speculation that Bibi is not yet convinced that Israel should take this initiative.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak is seen as leading the charge toward war,. However, both he and Netanyahu seem to be of one mind that the Obama Administration can and should be pushed toward a more aggressive stance against Iran.

The two-pronged attack, with Israeli officials, including Netanyahu, publicly attacking Dempsey while their friends on the Hill lead a charge toward making war harder to avoid, abetted by AIPAC pushing hard on potentially vulnerable senators in an election year, will not be an easy one for rationality and sober analysis to withstand.

These are considerable political pressure being brought to bear. Virtually none of it is based on US strategic interests (which do include preventing Iran from building a nuclear weapon, yes, but also include maintaining some stability in the Gulf region.) It is also not coincidental that the rhetoric and political jockeying are swelling noticeably just before the annual AIPAC convention, when Netanyahu will again be meeting with Obama and which will be a stage show for the push to war with Iran.

And, as is too often the case, Iran does opponents of war no favors with yet another episode just yesterday ofrefusing to cooperate with inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, and giving a double-talking excuse as to why.

Though I have never subscribed to the notion that the Israel Lobby was not a significant factor in policy formation, neither do I believe it is as decisive as some make it out to be. I found merit in the arguments of John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, but absolutely and frequently disagreed with their charge that the invasion of Iraq was largely the work of the Lobby and was, in essence, a war for Israel.

I still disagree with them on that score. But if the US goes to war with Iran, that will indeed be a war for Israel, and one that Israel, and its Lobby here engineered, not through some nefarious means, but by playing the political game in Washington and the diplomatic game on the global stage very well.

And, folks, we’re just letting it happen.

As a Jew, as an American, as someone who cares deeply for Israel and who also cares about a better future for my child, I have to call this out. I hope you’ll join me.

In his acclaimed book Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, the Washington Post’s respected military correspondent Thomas E. Ricks noted that many in the higher echelons of the U.S. military had reservations about the precipitous use of force in Iraq. He noted:

The military has been displaying similar anxiety about the prospect of a war with the Islamic Republic. In 2007, the Sunday Times reported that a “generals’ revolt” was taking place due to Vice President Dick Cheney’s belligerence against Iran. At that time Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace, said there was “zero chance” of a war with Iran and put the Bush administration on the defensive when he said there wasn’t enough evidence to back up claims by U.S. intelligence that the Iranians were responsible for supplying insurgents in Iraq. Pace’s tenure as JCoS proved a short one, as he was replaced after serving only two years in office. His opposition to Cheney’s rhetoric appeared to be the main reason. Even four-star Admiral William Fallon was relieved from his duties as head of U.S. Central Command in 2008 after a profile in Esquire magazine highlighted his opposition to a military strike on Iran.

The military’s anti-war push-back has continued apace. The now retired Adm. Mike Mullen recently repeated his 2008 remarks expressing serious opposition to an attack on Iran, urging engagement.  The military has been particularly vocal about Israel provoking a war with Iran that it would inevitably be drawn into. Vice President Joe Biden’s remarks (now denied) that Israeli policies were endangering U.S. troops in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan were echoed by Gen. David Petraeus. Mark Perry reported in Foreign Policy:

With the lessons of Vietnam and Iraq behind it, the military appears reluctant to embroil itself in a new adventure conceived by politicians in Washington. Civilians in Washington have in the past tried to overcome such barriers by appointing more pliant officers to top positions. It will therefore be worth watching whether Martin Dempsey will show the same steel in resisting Washington hawks as his predecessor did.