One of my colleagues who often has a way with words described the recent debate about bomb damage to Iran’s three main nuclear sites as “asinine.” It was certainly that, especially since most of the folks involved in the discussion had no information other than what U.S. President Donald Trump claimed—“totally obliterated”—a few hours after U.S. bombers struck and a Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) leak to CNN suggesting otherwise.

The vapid back-and-forth over the state of Iran’s nuclear program was worse than it seemed, however. Setting aside the obvious problem that the participants in the discussion lacked any hard data, the debate reflected the destructive tendency within the foreign-policy community—broadly defined as elected leaders, foreign-policy analysts, and journalists—to offer narrative at the expense of fact-driven explanations.

One of my colleagues who often has a way with words described the recent debate about bomb damage to Iran’s three main nuclear sites as “asinine.” It was certainly that, especially since most of the folks involved in the discussion had no information other than what U.S. President Donald Trump claimed—“totally obliterated”—a few hours after U.S. bombers struck and a Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) leak to CNN suggesting otherwise.

The vapid back-and-forth over the state of Iran’s nuclear program was worse than it seemed, however. Setting aside the obvious problem that the participants in the discussion lacked any hard data, the debate reflected the destructive tendency within the foreign-policy community—broadly defined as elected leaders, foreign-policy analysts, and journalists—to offer narrative at the expense of fact-driven explanations.

This narrative-driven........

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