Kaplan is engages in wishful thinking when he declares that Bush can't attack Iran now. Remember that the War of Civilizations crowd has always hedged its bets with two story lines on Iran:

1) Nukes

2) Meddling in Iraq

Cheney, Podhoretz et a. will just need to fall back on (2) now to get their war. Iranian misdeeds on the ground can easily be provoked, or simply fabricated, and (even as Glen Greenwald screams from his lonely perch) the corporate media will fall happily in line as the bombs start to fall and we have a new war. It's not a certainty within Bush's term, but it's certainly possible.

Even if Bush talks to Iran, it would be the same way he and the Israelis talk to the Arabs of Palestine -- a charade, orchestrated to blame the other side for the expected and fully intended failure of the talks. (Anonymous White House officials were already blaming the Palestinians for the failure of the current "peace process" even as the Annapolis meeting was still going on.) The Iranians are smart enough to know how Bush and the Israelis operate. The whole world knows. It's all a game whose rules can't be stated, and so it will remain as long as American elites retain their current flavor.

Iran's sin is not nukes per se, but its implacable opposition to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. So the drums of war will continue to beat regardless of any talk-charade that might be going on in the meantime. To understand what is coming, you need to understand the background, which no reporter in the corporate media would ever state or admit to understanding, but which the Israel lobby knows fully well:

-- The Iranians don't want nukes so they can promptly nuke Israel. (This is just another AIPAC-neocon big lie.) They want nukes to constrain Israeli choices. The foundation of Israeli defense strategy is a nuclear first strike in case they ever face defeat by conventional means, or simply get tired of conventional attacks (which will inevitably grow more capable and destructive in future decades.) Iran wants nukes to deter an Israeli first strike, as Hezbollah, Hamas, and who knows who else in the future slowly wear them down, with Iranian backing.

-- This scenario will play out over decades, not years. Israel's opponents don't yet have the conventional weapons necessary to mount a challenge, so the nuclear umbrella can be deferred. 2015 will be fine.

Israel, and its American lobby, and their wholly-owned US elected officials (most of congress and whatever president) will continue to plan for war, which is inevitable.