Speculating about attacking Iran

From U.S. Officials Are Mulling Iran Strikes, Experts Say by Marc Perelman The Forward 04/07/06:

Key players in the Bush administration think a military confrontation with Iran is unavoidable, leading to stepped up military planning for such a prospect, according to several experts and recently departed senior government officials.

Some of these observers stressed that military strikes against Iran are not imminent and speculated that the escalated war chatter could be a deliberate ploy to ratchet up diplomatic pressure on Tehran to abandon its nuclear ambitions. Still, they made clear, the tone in Washington has changed drastically. ...

According to Laurent Murawiec, a senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute, the Bush administration's contingency plans were being upgraded "because the diplomatic solution has lost credibility." Murawiec said that while he feared several years ago that some officials in Washington seemed to be relying on Israel to take out Iran's nuclear facilities, "I don't fear this anymore." He added that two European defense ministries were also working on military contingency plans, but declined to identify them.

Laurent Murawiec's name should always be an alarm bell when it pops up in these articles. See The PowerPoint That Rocked the Pentagon: The LaRouchie defector who's advising the defense establishment on Saudi Arabia by Jack Shafer Slate 08/07/02 for the reason why.