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Sometimes the existence of a newspaper story is as interesting as the story itself. That’s the case for a Thursday article in the New York Times, which reports that Vice President J.D. Vance has been sounding out U.S. military leaders’ blunt views about the war in Iran. The story mostly confirms what we already knew: Things aren’t going well. But if everyone in the administration wanted these discussions to be private, they would have stayed that way. So who talked, and what were they hoping to achieve? It may well be another effort by Vance to distance himself from an unpopular conflict that threatens to derail his political future. There are other possibilities as well, though, so let’s get into it.

Back up. What exactly does this story say?

It reports that Vance has been directly calling U.S. commanders in the Middle East, Asia, and Europe since the spring to solicit their opinions about tactics, casualties, and Iran’s response. The article—by reporters Jonathan Swan, Adam Entous, and Maggie Haberman—adds that those commanders are alarmed by how much the war has depleted U.S. weapons stockpiles, including long-range missiles and interceptors to thwart air attacks.

It sounds as if the story paints Vance in a positive light?

We’ve long known that Vance opposed Donald Trump’s decision to attack Iran. But this puts more meat on the bone, portraying the vice president as a diligent student of reality, in contrast to his boss’s lie-filled bluster. Vance “has sought to surface a greater level of detail and nuance about the war,” it says, and “developed a reputation inside the Trump administration........

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