Iraq's one problem, but how about Iran?

WASHINGTON — The hours of congressional testimony, the speeches and the news conferences this week were all, nominally, about Iraq.

But another, equally explosive question — what to do about Iran — loomed over the presentations by Army Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. military commander in Iraq, over U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker and over U.S. strategy for the Middle East.

Petraeus and Crocker, arguing that there has been progress in stabilizing Iraq since President Bush ordered a troop buildup there last year, pointed to Iran's support for Shiite militias in Iraq, which they called "special groups," as the No. 1 threat to Iraq's security.

Iran also announced this week that it has begun installing 6,000 high-speed centrifuges to enrich uranium that could be used for nuclear weapons.

While U.S. officials cast doubt on the claim by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the announcement underlined Tehran's refusal to abide by U.N. Security Council demands that it suspend uranium enrichment.

Concerns also have been growing over the unpredictable consequences of a possible attack on Israel by the Iranian- and Syrian-backed Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah.

The militant Shiite Muslim group blames the Israelis for a car bombing in Syria that killed one of the group's longtime leaders, and anti-terrorism experts in the U.S., Israel and Western Europe think that some attempt at retaliation is almost inevitable.

The Bush administration has been divided over Iran policy almost since the day the president took office and, according to a variety of officials, it remains so today.

One faction, led by Vice President Dick Cheney and including a sprinkling of officials at the Pentagon, State Department and elsewhere, has argued that before Bush leaves office in January, the administration should use military force to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities and punish Iran for supporting international terrorism and thwarting U.S. aims in Iraq.

Even supporters of that approach, however, acknowledge that their case was badly, perhaps even fatally, undercut by a National Intelligence Estimate last November that found that Iran, while still enriching uranium, had stopped work on nuclear weapons in the fall of 2003.

A second faction, led by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and much of the uniformed military and the intelligence community, opposes military strikes in favor of continued sanctions, diplomatic pressure and talks with Iran under certain conditions.

This faction appears, for now, to retain the upper hand.

Iranian and U.S. representatives are expected in the coming weeks to hold a new round of security talks in Baghdad, the first since last summer, a State Department official said Thursday.