Is Iran next? The Bush administration's crusade to "democratize" the Middle East is zeroing in on Iran's nuclear ambitions. The result could be devastating--but the worst need not happen.(IRAN)

As the current crisis with Iran unfolds, discussion of a possible war is tinted with a sense of deja vu and burdened with a feeling of inevitability. Once again, the Bush administration issues grim warnings about the prospect of "weapons of mass murder" falling into the hands of a deranged ruler heading a terrorist-sponsoring regime. Once again, the administration lobbies the UN Security Council, rather than Congress, for "authority" to wage a war it insists is necessary to preempt a dire global threat. And the Iranian regime's defiant militancy apparently leaves little reason to hope that the anticipated war--which even hawkish observers believe would be devastating--can ...