The possibility of a military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities, which everyone fears, has become part of political campaigns in both the United States and Iran, at a time when the administrations of George Bush and Ahmadinejad are preparing to face electors in both countries at the end of this year and during the spring of 2009.

In Washington, American pundits believe that any attack ordered by the Bush administration before its departure would represent significant support for the electoral campaign of Republican candidate John McCain, who has a wider trust base among electors, being seen as most capable of protecting US interests abroad. However, such support will depend on the success or failure of this campaign. This is reminiscent of the failed attempt by former president Jimmy Carter to rescue American hostages from the US embassy in Tehran on the eve of the 1980 presidential elections, which brought Ronald Reagan, the godfather of the neoconservatives, to the White House.

External, and particularly Iranian, concerns have come to dominate the US presidential battle. The results of the poll conducted by American Research Center "Pew" show that 51% of people polled consider that McCain's foreign policies are trustworthy, as opposed to 43% who consider that Democratic candidate Obama's stances are "solid" enough to protect these interests. Hence it is natural that the results of a Republican administration's strike against Iran will affect McCain's chances. A Republican president's exit from the White House, having met with defeat in two of his declared wars against the "Axis of Evil" (the first being the unresolved nuclear issue with Iran; and the second, the failure to capture Osama bin Laden) will not give the Republican candidate the opportunity to claim a greater ability in maintaining the US's prestige than Obama, who has drawn on Bush's defeats to call for a different approach to foreign policy and for resolving the Iranian issue.

In Tehran, the emergence of newly elected chairman of parliament Ali Larijani on the political battlefield in the face of president Ahmadinejad has led to the appearance of a different vision for dealing with the nuclear issue. It is true that Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has the last word regarding a settlement of the nuclear issue. Nevertheless, it is a matter of ongoing debate among Iran's decision-makers. A clear indication of this is the amount of time taken by Tehran to respond to the latest offer made by EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, Javier Solana. Iranian pundits have described this offer as carrying 70% of positive elements, the remaining 30% being negotiable.

Larijani has urged Western powers to refrain from provoking Iran through a military strike on its facilities, as it would thwart any possibility of negotiating with Iran in the future, and would surely turn any Iranian project in the nuclear field into a military project. This is why the former nuclear negotiator has called for taking advantage of the last opportunity to reach a settlement on this issue, which has aroused the concern of many in the region and has had a negative impact on the world's security and economic stability. However, although Ali Larijani has been among those who call for reaching settlement on the nuclear issue, it is doubtful that president Ahmadinejad shares the same views, especially given the fact that he considers any suspension of uranium enrichment, under any circumstances, to be a defeat for his stern discourse, based on frightening the "Iranian nation" of the West's attempts to deprive it of its rights.

Thus, the settlement of the nuclear issue remains suspended, as it had always been in past years, between the "rationality" of George Bush and that of Ahmadinejad. Between these two "minds", one will need to search very hard to find an acceptable solution to this crisis… before Israel assumes its own solution and spares us all of rationality!