Via Alexander Cockburn, here are Noam Chomsky's thoughts (acute and deeply informed, as always) on the probability that the Bush administration will attack Iran:

They're desperate. Everything they touch is in ruins. They're even in danger of losing control over Middle Eastern oil -- to China, the topic that's rarely discussed but is on every planner or corporation exec's mind, if they're sane. Iran already has observer status at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization -- from which the US was pointedly excluded. Chinese trade with Saudi Arabia, even military sales, is growing fast. With the Bush administration in danger of losing Shiite Iraq, where most of the oil is (and most Saudi oil in regions with a harshly oppressed Shiite population), they may be in real trouble. Under these circumstances, they're unpredictable. They might go for broke, and hope they can salvage something from the wreckage. If they do bomb, I suspect it will be accompanied by a ground assault in Khuzestan, near the Gulf, where the oil is (and an Arab population -- there already is an Ahwazi liberation front, probably organized by the CIA, which the US can "defend" from the evil Persians), and then they can bomb the rest of the country to rubble. And show who's boss.

Actually I disagree with him about the likelihood of a ground assault. As insane as the Bush administration may be, they know that the global response to an unprovoked attack on Iran would likely be nothing short of ferocious, and so I'd guess they would attack with little or no warning and try to limit the attack to as short a time period as possible (e.g. the three days mentioned in this analysis, or even fewer) in order to nullify organized resistance in the US and throughout the world. A ground assault would be too uncertain and would take too long.

I'm sickened more than I can say by the thought that these bloodthirsty fools are plotting in every way they can to add yet more bodies to their mountains of innocent dead. As useless as it is, I offer my apologies to the people of Iran for the crimes my country has committed against you in the past, and for the more direct and terrible crimes it is contemplating now. I only hope we can stop it.