Mearsheimer seems to think that it's mostly because of the lobby

Man the spooks are really on one lately. did you notice Hersh trying to discredit the Russian govt by pretending a terrorism warning that had expired like a month before should have covered Crocus Hall attack.

Hersh also treated info he got about the Ukrainians and the British somehow being more independently responsible for the Nord Stream attack than the US very credulously. In light of this I have to assume it's a further expression of the CYOA disclosure to journalists who have a patronage relationship with the CIA Doug Valentine pointed out in The CIA as Organized Crime (when we see the white house try to hide behind ISIS K to do some kind of hybrid warfare shit of politically damaging muh dictators to topple them)