Certainly, the evidence of the past few weeks appears to suggest growing US efforts to militarily prevent Iran’s nuclear technology development and a renewed campaign to garner support, domestic and international, for an attack on Iran.
1) Within the last few days President Bush said;
“I've told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them (Iran) from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon." and Dick Cheney stated “we will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon”
2) As a way of justifying any future attacks, US officials have accused Iran and particularly the Quds division of supplying arms and directing insurgents in Iraq and have counteracted by building a US military base within Iraq, a few miles from the Iranian border.
3) The US gave tacit approval to an Israeli air force attack in September upon a suspected nuclear reactor site in Syria and has since endorsed Israeli intelligence [sic] claims that the site was used for nuclear development. This may have been by way of a trial run for a future Israeli pre-emptive attack on Iran.
4) The political medium within the US appears to be coalescing around the possibility of an imminent strike on Iran with leading Democrat Presidential contender, Hilary Clinton, expressing her view that she would support an attack on Iran.
5) As part of a huge increase in military spending the administration has requested monies for ‘bunker busting’ weapons to be used in its Stealth bombers as means to destroy underground facilities and storage sites. This has been widely interpreted as a signal to target Iranian nuclear facilities. In addition a second US navel carrier has recently been deployed in the Gulf region.
6) The French government, which had been a staunch opponent of the US invasion of Iraq, under the Sarkozy administration has softened its position towards the US and shifted its stance such that it could contemplate foreseeable attacks upon Iran.
On the reverse, it can be argued that the US decision to impose stricter sanctions and label the Quds division a terrorist entity does not necessarily mean the US is more likely to permit an attack. In fact, sanctions have been in operation against Iran since 1979, reaffirmed twice under the Clinton administration to prevent US companies investing in Iran’s oil and energy industries. Moreover, the decision to place the Quds division on a list of foreign terrorist organisation was first mooted by the US State department in August.
The most preponderant view remains that an attack appears unlikely as previously documented. However, the dilemma for the US is that the administration during the Bush second term has been oscillating between two competing factions with one faction or the other having the temporary ascendancy at any given point; the neocons led by Vice-President Dick Cheney who favour a military strike to prevent Iran’s nuclear development either by US or Israeli forces and the realists led by the State department, Condoleezza Rice and Defence Secretary Robert Gates who believe a diplomatic route can be used to achieve the same ends.
In the final analysis the one other factor that may disturb this equilibrium is that the Bush administration is entering its final year of office. Bush, the senior, was severely criticised within his own republican party and beyond for not removing Saddam Hussain from power following the first gulf war in 1991 in what was seen as unfinished business. In the history of US foreign policy the invasion of countries and killing of thousands of innocents comes easily. It is conceivable that the fear of being tarnished in the same way over Iran will add pressure upon Bush, the junior, to embark upon a military attack.
Nevertheless, with US forces mired in the continued failures of Afghanistan and Iraq, a resurgent Democratic Party and world public opinion stacked up against a strike the obstacles that lay in the path of any attack on Iran remain considerable.