A classified assessment by the U.S. National Intelligence Council concludes that even a large-scale U.S. military campaign against Iran would be unlikely to overthrow the country’s ruling system. The report, completed about a week before the U.S.–Israeli war that began Feb. 28, examined scenarios ranging from targeted strikes against senior leaders to broader attacks on government institutions. In both cases, analysts judged that Iran’s clerical and military establishment would likely maintain control. Even if Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei were killed, established succession procedures involving the Assembly of Experts and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps would probably ensure continuity of power. The intelligence community also believes it is unlikely that Iran’s fragmented opposition could quickly take control of the country. The findings cast doubt on President Donald Trump’s stated aim of removing Iran’s leadership and installing a new ruler. Experts say Iran’s entrenched institutions and security forces make regime collapse or a mass uprising improbable despite war and economic pressure. The National Intelligence Council, or NIC, is composed of veteran analysts who produce classified assessments meant to represent the collective wisdom of Washington’s 18 intelligence agencies.

Does this mean that the NIC simply didn’t submit this report to Trump before he made the decision to start the war? Or was it submitted and Trump didn’t read it? Or did he read it and decide to start the war anyway? Or, most likely, was he simply maneuvered into starting this war by Israel regardless of any reports? Based on the available information, the last explanation seems the most likely. And this is very troubling no matter how you look at it.

First and foremost, it is bad for America and Americans. By most conservative estimates, the war will cost American taxpayers at least 20 billion—over 55 per each man, woman, and child, or about 170 per average American family. That is a significant sum that could have gone to groceries or other domestic priorities instead of funding a war driven largely by the interests of another country. It is also bad for Jewish people worldwide, because someone of relative respect, popularity, or authority may soon tell to ordinary Americans that they are going into debt to protect the security and interests of the Jewish state and Jews in general. And ordinary Americans will resent that. Less than a hundred years ago, one mediocre Austrian painter leveraged similar resentments—with disastrous consequences for the Jews and the world. This is a lesson that history urges us not to forget.