<TABLE id=tableToday09 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=2 width="100%" border=0><TBODY id=tbodyToday09><TR id=trIN20080520093512OPENX><TD class=storyTitle>"Bush intends to attack Iran before the end of his term" - Jerusalem Post</TD></TR><TR><TD>

</TD><TD class=st-Art>The Jerusalem Post reports that US President George W. Bush intends to attack Iran in the upcoming months, before the end of his term, Israeli Army Radio quoted a senior official in Jerusalem as saying Tuesday. The official claimed that a senior member of the president's entourage, which concluded a trip to Israel last week, said during a closed meeting that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were of the opinion that military action was called for. However, the official continued, "the hesitancy of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice" was preventing the administration from deciding to launch such an attack on the Islamic Republic, for the time being. The report stated that according to assessments in Israel, recent turmoil in Lebanon, where Hizbullah de facto established control of the country, was advancing an American attack. (Briefing.com note: Stories such as this have been appearing in the press every few months whenever senior American officials visit the Middle East, and this seems like just more of the same, so it likely won't be market-moving.)
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I saw this on Briefing.com today. Certainly Bush might think a war on Iran, properly timed, could swing the election to McCain.

It's no wonder that both Gates and Rice are worried, if that's true ---- the military is wildly overstretched for a third war, and there is so much international dislike and distrust of us now it must be a problem generally for the State Department.

All the same, it sure wouldn't surprise me if Bush did this. And lost again, as usual.

Any thoughts?

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