Bush needs Osama Bin Laden free and Iran pursuing nukes

Because if we caught Osama, we'd expect our soldiers could pack up and come home, right? Bush can't have that! He needs a boogie man to keep us afraid. The next terrorist attack will obviously let us bomb Iran.

Joe from Americablog points out Iran has been capturing al-Qaeda who travel through Iran to get to Iraq.

And Iran is offering to have talks:

MUNICH, Germany (Reuters) - Iran insisted on Saturday an escalating dispute with the West over its nuclear activity could be resolved by negotiation as its security chief arrived in Germany for meetings with European Union leaders.

But EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana played down chances of a breakthrough at a planned meeting on Sunday with Ali Larijani, saying at most it could rekindle efforts to settle the row caused by suspicions Iran is seeking atomic bombs.

A few European nations were weighing a compromise proposal under which Iran could run a few hundred nuclear centrifuges for research ends but without feeding uranium into them to generate fuel, while negotiating for trade incentives from Western powers to curb its nuclear program, European diplomats said.

But while Tehran would probably be open to such an idea, diplomats said the United States and Britain would demur over concern Iran would gain nuclear skills merely by vacuum-testing centrifuges, which can make fuel for power plants or bombs.

If we have talks, we can't attack. Betcha Bush will say no to talks:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who only two years ago supported renewing diplomatic relations with Tehran, has taken the administration’s recent Iran bashing to heart, saying the U.S. will beef up its presence in the Persian Gulf to make sure Ahmadinejad & Co. don’t get any ideas: “The Iranians clearly believe that we are tied down in Iraq, that they have the initiative, that they’re in a position to press us in many ways.... We are simply trying to communicate to the region that we are going to be there for a long time.”

And:

TALLINN, Estonia: U.S. President George W. Bush on Tuesday ruled out any talks with Iran until it suspends its uranium enrichment program, and said Iran and Syria should not destabilize the fledgling democracy in neighboring Iraq.

"Iran knows how to get to the table with us," Bush told reporters during a visit to Estonia. "And that is to do that which they said they would do, which is verifiably suspend their enrichment programs."

The U.S. alleges Iran is secretly developing atomic weapons, though Tehran has repeatedly claimed its program is for peaceful purposes, including generating electricity.

"The idea of this regime having a nuclear weapon, by which they could blackmail the world, is unacceptable to free nations," Bush said.

And showing how hard they worked to bring Iran to the table, Condi's diplomacy at work:

If the confrontation with Iran can be settled, it will be managed only through some shrewd mix of economic pressure, political saber-rattling, and diplomatic maneuver. Maybe Secretary Rice will try to pursue some combination along these lines, during her trip this week to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates. Meanwhile, last week's testimony—in which she tried to promote nuclear nonproliferation and Iranian democracy but wound up damping the prospects for both—doesn't offer much hope.

They don't want to fix the problem. They want more problems. It allows them to do what they planned to do ever since the PNAC neocons got into power six years ago.