Strobel | McClatchy: All the talk is about Iraq, but concern about Iran is mounting

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The Bush administration has been divided over Iran policy almost since the day the president took office and, according to a variety of officials, it remains so today.

One faction, led by Vice President Dick Cheney and including a sprinkling of officials at the Pentagon, State Department and elsewhere, has argued that before President Bush leaves office in January, the administration should use military force to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities and punish Iran for supporting international terrorism and thwarting U.S. aims in Iraq.

Even supporters of that approach, however, acknowledge that their case was badly, perhaps even fatally, undercut by a National Intelligence Estimate last November that found that Iran, while still enriching uranium, had stopped work on nuclear weapons in the fall of 2003.

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Bush's own senior advisers on Iraq stressed this week that there are limits to Iranian influence in Iraq, due to the long history of enmity between the Persian and Arab neighbors, including the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War.

The latest Iranian maneuvering, they suggested, has awakened Maliki's government to the dangers of getting too close to Iran.

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http://www.mcclatchydc.com/iraq/story/33306.html