Iranian diplomats reacted furiously to Monday’s Israeli airstrike on a building adjacent to Iran’s consulate in Syria. The Biden administration appears almost as peeved. State Department officials hint that Israel gave the United States very little notice of the airstrike. This reticence indicates that senior Israeli military officials no longer trust the White House to keep pending operations secret and may affirm rumors that the Biden administration previously forced Israel to call off an airstrike on a high-value terrorist target in Beirut. Recently retired Central Intelligence Agency official Ralph Goss, likely reflecting the views of his colleagues in Langley, Virginia, called the Israeli strike “reckless” and added, “It will only result in escalation by Iran and its proxies.”

Critics of the strike get responsibility exactly backward.