Most pundits say Bush will knock out Iran's nuke plants by spring, but months of not pulling the trigger prove he'll never do it - though someone else might, argues Steven Clemons in Salon. Advisers pushing for the military option have lost ground to moderates, and a coterie of neocons penning op-ed pieces hasn't swayed Bush to open another war front in the Middle East.
The White House plays good cop/bad cop to make Iran fear a strike, but Bush knows his Iran intel is thin and post-attack chaos would be vast. So he isn’t going in unless someone whips up an “engineered provocation.” Who would do such a thing? "The two people who would see their political fortunes rise through a new conflict -- Cheney and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad." (More Iran stories.)