Let's Hope This Is False

Steve Clemons has a heck of a tale to tell over it has blog. Roughly speaking, Clemons says Dick Cheney fears that George W. Bush is disinclined to start a war with Iran, and that he's going to let Condoleezza Rice and her staff continue with a diplomatic approach that Cheney thinks is doomed to failure, but that has the support of Robert Gates, Mike McConnell, and Michael Hayden.

Cheney and his allies, the story goes, are trying to tell the Israeli government that they should find "some key moment in the ongoing standoff between Iran's nuclear activities and international frustration over this to mount a small-scale conventional strike against Natanz using cruise missiles (i.e., not ballistic missiles)." That done, the political context in the United States will change, and Cheney believes it will set the stage for an abandonment of the diplomatic approach and the deployment of American military options.