Blair and Iran

Tony Blair will resign from office in April 2007, according to an unnamed source in the White House.

But, arguably, that isn't the most important part of this report from the Arab Times:

Washington will launch a military strike on Iran before April 2007, say sources. The attack will be launched from the sea and Patriot missiles will guard all oil-producing countries in the region, they add.
[...]
According to the source, Vice President Dick Cheney highlighted the threat posed by Iran to not only Saudi Arabia but the whole region. “Tehran is not playing politics. Iranian leaders are using their country’s religious influence to support the aggressive regime’s ambition to expand,” the source quoted Dick Cheney as saying. Indicating participants of the meeting agreed to impose restrictions on the ambitions of Iranian regime before April 2007 without exposing other countries in the region to any danger, the source said “they have chosen April as British Prime Minister Tony Blair has said it will be the last month in office for him. The United States has to take action against Iran and Syria before April 2007.”

(all emphasis added)

I came to this via the excellent and hawkish Iranian exile and blogger, The Spirit of Man, who has also written:

I was talking to an Iranian who has just come to Canada, and I asked him how Iranian people still feel about any possible US invasion or overthrowing the mullahs by any possible means, and he said that most people are still for these two options because things have got worse since 2-3 yrs ago and people are sick of the regime. Inflation is worse, human rights abuses have got worse, basic freedoms are being restricted more than ever and people are fed up with this new mental person aka Ahmadinejad.

So what's going on here? American soldiers arrested five Iranian "diplomats" in Kurdistan a few days ago, and now there is a leak, apparently, to an English-language Kuwaiti newspaper.

1. Perhaps an attack is planned. Perhaps Blair will go in April.

or

2. Perhaps the Americans are softening up the Iranians ahead of their security surge, telling them by proxy to get out of Iraq.

I take #2 right now.