Danielle Pletka, vice president for foreign and defense policy studies

To bomb or not to bomb, is that really the question? Washington has seen a frenzy of speculation about American plans to attack Iran, and rumormongers are, as usual, as uninformed as they are uninhibited in sharing their musings as fact.

Iran, its nuclear weapons program, its support for terrorism, its interference in Iraq and its brutal dictatorship cannot be reduced to a simple question about military action. More complicated still, the issues are intertwined, and addressing one without confronting the others may cause more problems than it solves.

Yet a curious passivity in face of these multiple issues means President George W. Bush may, by the end of his administration, leave himself only the alternative of launching a strike or kicking the can down the road to his successor, having failed to develop any other promising options for pressuring the Iranian regime.

On the nuclear front, Mohammad El Baradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, appears determined to allow Iran to evade sanctions, let alone military action. Without the support of IAEA member states, he inked a deal with Tehran to answer outstanding questions about its nuclear program. This agreement, which allows Iran to drag out the inquiry into its clandestine nuclear activities into the foreseeable future, effectively undercuts efforts by the United States, United Kingdom and France to secure a third United Nations Security Council resolution tightening sanctions.

With Security Council action put off until November at the earliest, Iran is now free to move forward with its uranium enrichment program. Amazingly, Bush, who has described Iran's weapons programs as putting the Middle East "under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust," commented in late September that he is "hopeful that we can convince the Iranian regime to give up any ambitions it has in developing a weapons program, and do so peacefully."

As for Iranian support for international terrorism in Gaza, Lebanon, or anywhere else, the United States and the rest of the world appear equally unwilling to move ahead on useful steps. Iran has, without repercussions, violated the demand of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 not to "supply...arms and related materiel to Lebanon except as authorized by its government". Iranian proxy Hizballah has derailed the Lebanese democratic process with only murmured protests from erstwhile champions of democracy in Washington and Paris. American threats to sanction the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, the spearhead of terrorist training and armament, have come to naught.

The Revolutionary Guard Corps is also at the heart of training both Sunni and Shi'ite terrorists in Iraq, and coordinates the supply of shaped explosive charges into Iraq and Afghanistan. US military sources estimate that Iran has been directly responsible for hundreds of US combat deaths. Iranian markings have been found on weapons caches in Iraq, training camps have been pinpointed near Tehran and Iranian "diplomats" have been arrested with insurgents. As Iranian efforts to destabilize Iraq and kill Americans escalate, some in the US military have clamored for the right of hot pursuit into Iran, or at least the right to strike Iranian training camps (as indeed the Iranians have not hesitated to strike their perceived enemies in northern Iraq with artillery barrages).

Thus far, however, the US government has not signed off on hot pursuit, insisting on pursuing bilateral talks that US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker has described as "the appearance of discussion . . . instead of actually doing serious business."

Finally, there is the question of toppling the mullahs. In 2002, when President Bush said the United States stood with the people of Iran in their "quest for freedom," dissidents in Iran believed the tide had turned for them. If indeed it ever did, and there is scant evidence for the proposition, the tide has now receded. The Bush administration has explicitly disavowed regime change, either on its merits or as a means to ending the nuclear program, support for terror or the insurgency in Iraq.

In other words, there is little sign that the Bush administration is planning an attack on Iran, but also little sign that it has developed a coherent, energetic alternative policy.

Faced with the end of his presidency in 2008, the president may yet decide he cannot bequeath this nightmare to his successor. Indeed, there is ample anecdotal evidence that the president believes he may, in the end, have no choice but to launch an air strike on Iranian targets.

In that case, what will the US hit?

Recently, speculation has centered around an American strike on Iranian terrorist training camps, with the US taking a pass on the nuclear program. On the face of it, this is ridiculous. The Clinton administration proved the efficacy of the symbolic cruise missile attack in its bombing of a bin Laden camp in Afghanistan. A hole in the ground is no more likely to deter the Iranians than it did al-Qaeda. Worse yet, it will likely trigger a wave of terrorist response from the Iranians--a high price to pay for little reward.

More serious studies suggest a variety of key targets, including known nuclear installations, missile and air defense sites, Revolutionary Guard operations centers, intelligence ministries, etc. Strikes across a broad spectrum of Iran's terrorist and WMD infrastructure would have a huge impact, to be sure, but would raise a host of difficult questions as well. Would a military assault decapitate the regime? Would the Iranian people rise up in the rubble and take out the mullahs? There's no substantial reason to believe so. Most importantly, would such strikes end Tehran's WMD and terror programs?

The answer to this last question is unsure. A military strike would certainly set Iran back. It would buy time. But what would the United States or, more broadly, the international community do with that time to ensure that Iran doesn't accelerate its drive to acquire nuclear weapons to deter future interference in its plans?

Diplomats inside Tehran believe the regime is overconfident, certain that the United States cannot and will not attack. This is dangerous obtuseness. Of course the United States has ample firepower to level a good deal of Iran, and the war in Iraq has not diminished that capacity. (After all, no one has suggested ground forces invade.) As to whether the US actually should or would launch strikes, that may depend more on the success or failure of other options and Iran's own miscalculations.

If America and Britain are stymied by Russia and China in the United Nations there may be few diplomatic or economic options left to consider. Faced with the choice of accepting an Iranian nuclear bomb or ordering a strike, George W. Bush may choose the latter, risks and all.

Danielle Pletka is vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at AEI.