The good news is that U.S. President George W. Bush is not going to invade Iran before he leaves office. The bad news is that he is attacking Pakistan instead.

For years the White House has issued urgent warnings about the threat from Iran at every opportunity, accompanied by the threat that "all options are on the table" if Iran didn't stop its alleged nuclear weapons program. Since we knew how Bush acted in the case of Iraq's alleged nuclear weapons program, there was good reason to worry that he might actually carry out his threat.

Late last year the U.S. intelligence services deliberately undercut his case for war against Iran by releasing a joint assessment that concluded that Tehran had stopped its nuclear weapons program in 2004. That killed Bush's hopes of getting the American public to back an attack on Iran, and even the prospect of getting Russia to go along with sanctions against the Iranians pretty well died after the imbroglio in Georgia in August.