Bush Will Never Pull Trigger on Iran Bombings

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.)