Amazing that we continue to let these acts go unpunished. I never would’ve imagined it after Bush’s speech to Congress shortly after 9/11.
Bush has little or no capital left to start anything with Iran. They know that and that is why they are doing it. They never would have done this in 2003 or even 2004. But they smell blood in the water and are acting in their own best interest. They know it's just a matter of time before Bush is gone and the next president (R or D) will not want to spend all their political capital on waging this unpopular war and will look for the earliest exit. All they have to do is not poke the bear too egregiously but keep up the pressure to make this an unpopular war.
The only thing I think Bush might be able to pull off is that if Petraeus convinces the public that he has us heading in the right direction and there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Al Qaeda is on the run and all but vanquished, etc. But, he adds, Iran has their fingerprints all over the missing last piece of the puzzle, per se, and is responsible for most of our young soldiers deaths, then I think their may exist in some moderate democrats (the one or two in Senate) and the balance of the pubs the will to punch Iran with a haymaker. Perhaps an embargo or a bombing of suspected nuclear sites and refineries that effectively cripples them economically and sets off an internal revolution to overthrow the nutjobs running that country. Of course, this has a high probability of backfiring by actually uniting the Iranians behind their nutjob leaders.