In last night’s GOP presidential debate on CNN, moderator John King allowed a viewer to introduce a topic bedeviling U.S. foreign policy at the moment — Iran’s nuclear program. With war chatter on the rise, top U.S. officials have injected their opinions into the public debate.

Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey said on Sunday that an Israeli attack on Iran was “not prudent at this point” and that such a strike would be “destabilizing and wouldn’t achieve [Israel's] long-term objectives.” When King asked Newt Gingrich if, as president, he would take Dempsey’s advice, the former House Speaker dismissed the U.S.’s top military officer opinion, saying he “can’t imagine why” Dempsey holds some of his views:

GINGRICH: Well, first of all this is two different questions. General Dempsey went on to say that he thought Iran was a rational actor. I can’t imagine why he would say that. And I just cannot imagine why he would have said it. The fact is, this is a dictator, Ahmadinejad, who has said he doesn’t believe the Holocaust existed. This is a dictator who said he wants to eliminate Israel from the face of the earth. This is a dictator who said he wants to drive the United States out of the Middle East. I’m inclined to believe dictators. Now I — I think that it’s dangerous not to.

Watch a video of King’s question and Gingrich’s full answer:

Dempsey’s views track with those of the U.N. nuclear agency and reported U.S. intelligence estimates, as well as the public testimony of the top U.S. intelligence official. On Capitol HIll last month, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said of Iran’s nuclear program: “They are certainly moving on that path, but we don’t believe they’ve actually made the decision to go ahead with a nuclear weapon.”

Not only does Gingrich dismiss the opinion of the top American military officer, but he also badly misstates Iranian political dynamics. On NPR this morning, Mehdi Khalaji — an actual Iran expert with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy — pointed out that Iran’s actual dictator is not President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Instead, Iran is lead by a Supreme Leader, who holds the office for life and makes many of the state’s final decisions. Khalaji said:

The main decision maker on crucial issues, including the nuclear program, is Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader. … We have to bear in mind that he’s not only Iran’s supreme leader, he’s the commander-in-chief of the armed forces.

Khalaji’s latter comment means that Ahmadinejad cannot start a war — with Israel or anybody else — and that responsibility rests instead with the Supreme Leader.

If Gingrich wants to “listen to dictators” in order to justify his hawkish views, he should be free to do so. But it’s disconcerting that he doesn’t even know who the dictator is that he should be listening to.

Republicans often criticize President Obama for not hewing exactly to advice from top military leaders (a criticism those military leaders find “offensive“). But when it has suited their agendas, those very same Republicans have themselves not shied away from publicly disagreeing with top uniformed military officials.

In September, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) joined colleagues to criticize Obama for failing to offer a plan for Iraq that “reflects the best military advice of U.S. commanders.”

But Graham isn’t always so willing to listen to top American military officials. Last week the South Carolina Republican disagreed publicly with Director of National Intelligence James Clapper’s assessment that Iran hasn’t decided on whether it will build a nuclear bomb.

This weekend on CNN, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey spoke out against an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities in the immediate future and added that the pressure and diplomacy tracks should be pursued because the Joint Chiefs “are of the opinion that the Iranian regime is a rational actor.” Once again, Graham shot back, saying yesterday on CNN that he disagreed with the top U.S. military officer:

GRAHAM: But you know, General Dempsey is a fine man. But when he said that he thought the Iranians were rational actors, I just want to go on record. I don’t think it’s rational for a country to try to kill the Saudi Arabian ambassador in a restaurant in Washington.

I don’t see what Iran is doing is being rational. I see it as being dangerous and so that’s why we need to make sure Syria ends well.

Watch the video:

The alleged Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to Washington indeed represents a threat — one Clapper outlined. But Graham is missing the larger picture. Last month, Clapper said in his congressional testimony that Iran’s decision — yet unmade, according to reliable media organizations, U.N. agencies and reported U.S. intelligence estimates — to build a nuclear weapon or not “would be based on a cost-benefit analysis.” Clapper went on to give several examples of factors that could influence this cost-benefit analysis, such as economic and diplomatic pressure.

While Republican politicians should be free to criticize opinions expressed by military officers, they ought to cut out the hypocrisy of insisting on Obama’s fealty to military advice when jettisoning the officers’ opinions on topics where they disagree with the brass.

Over the past week, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria that the Iranians have “not decided that they will embark on the [...] effort to weaponize their nuclear capability.” Both Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee that Iran had not yet decided to develop a nuclear weapon.

But the analysis of America’s top military officer, the Secretary of Defense and the Director of National Intelligence just isn’t good enough for Christian Whiton, the Deputy Director of National Security Staff at the Newt Gingrich presidential campaign. Appearing on Fox News yesterday, Whiton falsely claimed that an International Atomic Energy Agency report from last November “says Iran is working on a nuclear weapons program,” adding that the administration “need[s] to start telling the truth about the threat [from Iran]“:

WHITON: The most important thing we need to do is start telling the truth about the threat. For Leon Panetta, the defense secretary, to go up to Congress last week and say that we know they’re working on an energy program and a uranium program but not necessarily a nuclear weapons program, that’s just wrong. The IAEA has said that is wrong. The 2007 National Intelligence Estimate that said Iran had halted its program was wrong, has been disproved. It is now viewed as misleading and politicized. So step one is telling the truth.”

Watch it:

But Whiton never got to “step one” himself. In fact, while the November IAEA report did express concerns about possible military dimensions to Iran’s program, it did not assert that Iran “is working on a nuclear weapons program.” Indeed, no further reports from U.S. intelligence services or the IAEA have asserted that Iran has restarted its nuclear weapons program.

The development of dual-military-civilian use technologies raises serious questions about Iran’s nuclear program, but no verifiable evidence has yet been produced to show that the Islamic Republic is actively pursuing a nuclear weapon. While Clapper said Iranians are “keeping themselves in a position to make that decision,” he also said that Iran is susceptible to sanctions and diplomacy. “We judge Iran’s nuclear decisionmaking is guided by a cost-benefit approach, which offers the international community opportunities to influence Tehran,” he said last week

Whiton, who last made headlines after the July, 2011 terrorist attack in Norway by claiming that European countries are susceptible to terrorism because they’re “neutral on the war on terror,” might want to check his facts before accusing the Secretary of Defense of lying to Congress.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey urged against an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear program, telling CNN’s Fareed Zakaria this morning that “It’s not prudent at this point to decide to attack Iran,” and such a strike would be “destabilizing and wouldn’t achieve [Israel's] long-term objectives.”

Dempsey, the highest ranking military officer in the U.S., went on to emphasize that while all options remain on the table, U.S. intelligence indicates that Iran has not yet decided to pursue a nuclear weapon:

MARTIN DEMPSEY: We also know, or believe we know, that the Iranian regime has not decided that they will embark on the [...] effort to weaponize their nuclear capability.

FAREED ZAKARIA: You think that is still unclear? [...]

DEMPSEY: It is. I believe it is unclear and on that basis I think it would be premature to exclusively decide that the time for a military option was upon us.

Watch the interview:

Dempsey’s conclusion that Iran has not yet decided to pursue a nuclear weapon reflects the consensus view of the U.S. intelligence community and the IAEA. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told the Senate Armed Service Committee on Thursday that Iran’s leadership had not yet decided to develop a nuclear weapon but were “keeping themselves in a position to make that decision.”

The November IAEA report on Iran’s nuclear program found that while there were possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear program, the nuclear watchdog agency couldn’t confirm that Tehran was pursuing a nuclear weapon. The IAEA’s findings were upheld by CIA Director David Petraeus last month. Petraeus told the Senate Intelligence Committee that the IAEA report is “the authoritative document” on Iran’s nuclear program.

Indeed, a nuclear weapons possessing Iran would be destabilizing but while hawks on Capitol Hill are eager to portray Iran as a “martyr state” hellbent on acquiring nuclear weapons, senior intelligence and military officials take a very different view. “We are of the opinion that the Iranian regime is a rational actor,” said Dempsey. “And it’s for that reason that we think the current path we’re on is the most prudent path at this point.”

For the past 24 hours, news outlets have feverishly reported on Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s belief, as first reported by the Washington Post’s David Ignatius, that “there is a strong likelihood that Israel will strike Iran in April, May or June.” The views attributed to Panetta were quickly echoed by Israeli officials. But the appearance of a consensus that Israel has already decided to bomb Iran is undermined by various statements from U.S. and Israeli officials.

Former Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Moshe Ya’alon, speaking at the Herzliya conference on Thursday, boasted that all of Iran’s nuclear facilities “can be hit, and I speak from experience as the IDF chief of staff,” and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, speaking at Herzliya later in the day, warned that there is a consensus among many nations that “a nuclear Iran will be more complicated to deal with, more dangerous and more costly in blood than if it were stopped today.”

While Panetta’s reported views, along with those of senior Israeli officials speaking at Herzliya, were interpreted by many as evidence of an emerging consensus that Israel will attack Iranian nuclear facilities before June — when Iran enters what Israelis describe to Ignatius as a “‘zone of immunity’ to commence building a nuclear bomb” — U.S. and Israeli officials are not in agreement on the inevitability of an Israeli attack.

Panetta, speaking in Brussels yesterday, refused to comment on Ignatius’s column but told reporters that “Israel has indicated they are considering this, and we have indicated our concerns.” The Associated Press reported Panetta’s comments in an article emphasizing that “Israel’s major allies in the West are working hard to talk it out of a unilateral military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, arguing forcefully that an attack ultimately would strengthen, not weaken, the regime in Tehran.” And in a seeming effort to deter an attack, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey reportedly warned Israeli leaders last month that the U.S. would not participate in a war against Iran initiated by Israel.

U.S. defense officials are not alone in expressing serious misgivings about an Israeli attack. While Ya’alon, Barak and Panetta’s comments dominated news coverage yesterday, The Independent reported that almost the entire hierarchy of Israel’s military and security establishment is concerned about the consequences from a premature Israeli attack on Iran, according to Lt. Gen. Amnon Lipkin-Shahak. Lipkin-Shahak, in comments starkly contrasting with Ya’alon and Barak’s hawkish warnings at Herzliya, warned that there had been little analysis of what happens the “day after” Israel strikes Iran and “It is quite clear that much if not all of the IDF [Israeli Defence Forces] leadership do not support military action at this point.”

Earlier this week, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper advocated that economic pressure could dissuade Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon and CIA Director David Petraeus urged policymakers to examine the current and upcoming IAEA reports to determine Iran’s nuclear intentions. The IAEA has said it has concerns about military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program and inspectors returned from a monitoring trip to Iran this week. But with reports of inspectors not receiving full access to sites mentioned in the IAEA’s November report, Tehran will be under heightened pressure to cooperate with the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency during its next trip to Iran later this month.

The top officer in the U.S. military, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey, told the National Journal that the time has not come to decide on whether to use military force against Iran to curb its alleged push toward nuclear weapons. Speaking to the National Journal, Dempsey said:

I do think the path we’re on — the economic sanctions and the diplomatic pressure — does seem to me to be having an effect. I just think that it’s premature to be deciding that the economic and diplomatic approach is inadequate.

Neither the latest report from the International Atomic Energy Agency nor the most recent reported estimate of the U.S. intelligence community concluded that Iran has made a decision to build a nuclear bomb. And Haaretz reported last week that Israeli intelligence concurs with this view.

The Obama administration has pursued a dual-track approach so far of pressure and engagement, including a leveraging global diplomacy against Iran’s nuclear program — a record the President spoke about in his State of the Union address on Tuesday, expressing a continuing preference to resolving the crisis diplomatically. Facing the toughest sanctions yet from the U.S. and the European Union, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday signaled Iran was ready for nuclear talks.

In his interview, Dempsey “made clear he believed an approach involving military force wasn’t warranted at this point and could carry unforeseen risks,” National Journal reported, adding that Dempsey’s comments “represented the first time senior Pentagon officials weighed in” on the issue.

With the ink barely dry on her contract, Liz Cheney took up her new role as a Fox News contributor in an interview with Fox and Friends‘ Eric Bolling. Cheney came out swinging, telling viewers that President Obama’s proposed cuts to military spending would damage the U.S. military in ways that the Taliban and al Qaeda had been unable:

ERIC BOLLING: Let’s talk about these drastic cuts in military [sic]. Weigh in on that. Do we become a much more vulnerable nation?

LIZ CHENEY: There’s no question. I think in fact what President Obama is doing is something that America’s enemies — the Taliban and Al Qaeda — have been unable to do, which is to decimate the fighting capability of this nation.

Cheney went on to conflate Iraq and Iran — asserting that “Iraq is months, not years, away” from enriching the uranium required for a nuclear weapon — and claimed that Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin E. Dempsey hadn’t clearly stated that the U.S. would respond militarily if Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz. Watch it:

Indeed, Obama proposed a $487 billion cut to military spending, but Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin E. Dempsey told a Duke University audience yesterday, “This is something we the Joint Chiefs have endorsed as best for America.” He did not comment on whether the cuts in defense spending would serve the interests of the Taliban and al Qaeda but he also said last week that the military’s leadership is supportive of Obama’s plan and, not as Liz Cheney suggests, suffering a “decimat[ion]” of their fighting capability.

Cheney also got it wrong on the statements issued by Dempsey about the Strait of Hormuz. Yesterday, the New York Times reported:

Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said this past weekend that the United States would “take action and reopen the strait,” which could be accomplished only by military means, including minesweepers, warship escorts and potentially airstrikes. Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta told troops in Texas on Thursday that the United States would not tolerate Iran’s closing of the strait.

While Cheney is broadening her professional credentials, her debut appearance as a Fox News contributor showed her as a commentator who pays very little attention to the administration and the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s actual positions on the issues she covers.

During Saturday night’s ABC/Yahoo! Republican presidential debate, former U.S. ambassador to China Jon Huntsman rapped former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney on failing to recognize the chain-of-command of the U.S. military. By design, the military leadership is subservient to the president, a fact most GOP contenders have ignored throughout the campaign as they sought to portray Barack Obama as weak on national security.

Romney has, as on so many issues, flip-flopped on whether or not a president should defer to his generals in making decisions about war and peace. Initially, he said Obama should defer to military leaders, then walked his position back and said he would listen to the generals’ “input” and make his “own decision.” During Saturday’s debate, Romney didn’t quite return to his initial position, but he did punctuate his statement on a plan for Afghanistan by declaring that he would be “listening to the commanders on the ground.”

Asked to respond, Huntsman, who’s spoken out for a more speedy withdrawal from Afghanistan, lept at the opportunity:

MODERATOR: Governor Huntsman, you have a disagreement?

HUNTSMAN: Yes. I would have to tell Mitt that the president of the United States is the commander-in-chief. Of course you get input and — and advice from a lot of different corners of Washington, including the commanders on the ground.

But we also deferred to the commanders on the ground in about 1967, during the Vietnam War, and we didn’t get very good advice then.

Watch a video of the exchange:

The U.S.’s top military officer, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Martin Dempsey, and other top generals agree with Huntsman. “I find some of those articles about divergence or control of the generals to be kind of offensive to me,” Dempsey recently said. “(A)t the end of the day, our system is built on the fact that it will be our civilian leaders who make that decision and I don’t find that in any way to challenge my manhood, nor my position. In fact, if it were the opposite, I think we should all be concerned.”

Huntsman concluded his comments on Saturday by declaring that “civil war is around the corner in Afghanistan.” He said he doesn’t want to spend more money or lose more troops in that scenario and the U.S. should “move on.”