Pushing Bush to Attack Iran

"'For the sake of peace, the world must not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.'"

Butcher also notes: "Among Israeli supporters of military action against Iran there is concern something must be done before Mr Bush's end of office next January as Mr Bush is perceived as closer to Israel than any potential successor."

A particular irritant to Olmert and others who support military action against Iran is last year's U.S. National Intelligence Estimate, which reported that Iran shelved its nuclear weapons program four years ago. The NIE made an unprovoked U.S. attack on Iran's nuclear facilities politically impossible.

Bush has been trying to recast the NIE by focusing on its finding that Iran continues its nuclear enrichment program, but he hasn't gone so far as to reject its other conclusions.

Barak Ravid writes for Haaretz: "Olmert will try to convince Bush to set aside the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran's nuclear program in favor of data presented by Israel, and determine the administration's policy on Iran accordingly."

And at yesterday's press briefing, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino confirmed as much, saying: "Israel has made it clear that they think . . . that intelligence is wrong, and that Iran is still pursuing a nuclear weapon."

Administration critics, who in this case represent almost the entire foreign policy establishment minus the neocons, warn that an attack on Iran would backfire even more spectacularly than the invasion of Iraq.

Nevertheless, Vice President Cheney appears to be on the warpath, pushing if not for a preemptive U.S. attack, then for an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities or U.S. airstrikes on suspected training camps for Iraqi insurgents within Iran -- either of which would presumably provoke a protracted U.S. military campaign.

According to the conventional wisdom, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been holding Cheney at bay. But as Helene Cooper and Isabel Kershner write in the New York Times, Rice "escalated the Bush administration's anti-Iran rhetoric on Tuesday, accusing its government of pursuing nuclear weapons and calling any dialogue with its leaders pointless until they suspend the country's enrichment of uranium.

"While Ms. Rice's message was familiar, the tone of her speech, before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, was unusually sharp, taking oblique aim at Senator Barack Obama and other Democratic leaders who have called for the United States to engage Iran diplomatically. . . .

"Ms. Rice stopped short of calling for consideration of military strikes against suspected Iranian nuclear targets, as some national security conservatives in Vice President Dick Cheney's office have advised. But, in a pointed nod to her pro-Israel audience, Ms. Rice called on America's allies in Europe to look for ways to further press the Iranian government.

"'For the sake of peace, the world must not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon,' she said."