Originally Posted by Zemco

Bush has plenty of time, and so does McCain/Obama/Clinton.

The key dates that might force action would be the 2009 Election. In spite of what you have been led to believe, the presidencies of Iran and the US are not similar. The Iranian presidency is more akin to the German presidency, and in Germany, it is the chancellor that has the power, not the president. Still, a moderate will probably be elected, which would put the US in the position it was in before, with the moderate Khatami. It's hard to make war against a moderate. Ahmadinejad won't be re-elected because of his poor handling of domestic issues (the gasoline rationing to reduce domestic consumption of oil isn't very popular).

Another key date would be the operation of the unified military command for the Caspian Sea states, Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Russia. The US would want to act before the unified command becomes active, units are selected and identified, and start training together on field exercises. The five state Caspian Sea Treaty has a clause similar to the NATO Charter's mutual defense clause, where an attack on one state is an attack on all members.

The other key date would be the final negotiations for a Russian naval base in the Persian Gulf and the start of construction. The US requires unchallenged access to the Persian Gulf, and a Russian surface group and a few submarine squadrons would hamper the ability of the US to conduct operations against Iran, which is a critical piece of real estate the US needs to be successful in its geo-political strategy.

You seem to also be quite misinformed. Bush might leave and take a few neo-conservatives with him, but there will still be 10s of thousands of neo-conservatives in career bureaucrat positions making policy and guiding the next president, and you don't seem to realize that both Clinton and Obama have neo-conservatives on their campaign staffs now. Obama's foreign policy advisor is neo-conservative Anthony Lake, Clinton's former national security advisor and an unsuccessful nominee as Director CIA. He failed to be nominated because he arranged an arms deal between Iran and Bosnia and then lied about it to Congress.

The point is, getting rid of Bush will not get rid of the neo-cons, nor will it change US geo-strategy. The neo-cons were there before Bush was even governor of Texas, they'll be there long after Bush is gone, and the Three Stooges will bring in more neo-cons.

There'll be plenty of opportunities (and reasons) for the US to attack Iran for the next president, if Bush doesn't.