It’s looking more and more as if Bush’s October surprise really will be war with Iran. From the current edition of TIME magazine:

The first message was routine enough: a “Prepare to Deploy” order sent through naval communications channels to a submarine, an Aegis-class cruiser, two minesweepers and two mine hunters. The orders didn’t actually command the ships out of port; they just said to be ready to move by Oct. 1. But inside the Navy those messages generated more buzz than usual last week when a second request, from the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO), asked for fresh eyes on long-standing U.S. plans to blockade two Iranian oil ports on the Persian Gulf. The CNO had asked for a rundown on how a blockade of those strategic targets might work. When he didn’t like the analysis he received, he ordered his troops to work the lash up once again.

Need I remind anyone that a naval blockade is considered an act of war?

(cont.)

On its face, of course, the notion of a war with Iran seems absurd. By any rational measure, the last thing the U.S. can afford is another war. Two unfinished wars–one on Iran’s eastern border, the other on its western flank–are daily depleting America’s treasury and overworked armed forces. Most of Washington’s allies in those adventures have made it clear they will not join another gamble overseas. What’s more, the Bush team, led by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, has done more diplomatic spadework on Iran than on any other project in its 51/2 years in office. For more than 18 months, Rice has kept the Administration’s hard-line faction at bay while leading a coalition that includes four other members of the U.N. Security Council and is trying to force Tehran to halt its suspicious nuclear ambitions. Even Iran’s former President, Mohammed Khatami, was in Washington this month calling for a “dialogue” between the two nations.

But superpowers don’t always get to choose their enemies or the timing of their confrontations. The fact that all sides would risk losing so much in armed conflict doesn’t mean they won’t stumble into one anyway. And for all the good arguments against any war now, much less this one, there are just as many indications that a genuine, eyeball-to-eyeball crisis between the U.S. and Iran may be looming, and sooner than many realize. “At the moment,” says Ali Ansari, a top Iran authority at London’s Chatham House, a foreign-policy think tank, “we are headed for conflict.”

By the way this TIME article is a major puff piece in support of a possible war with Iran. They repeat the same old Bush administration talking points regarding how dangerous a threat Iran poses, as well as a new one: that Iran is a year or less away from producing bomb grade uranium.

But at some point the U.S. and its allies may have to confront the ultimate choice. The Bush Administration has said it won’t tolerate Iran having a nuclear weapon. Once it does, the regime will have the capacity to carry out Ahmadinejad’s threats to eliminate Israel. And in practical terms, the U.S. would have to consider military action long before Iran had an actual bomb. In military circles, there is a debate about where–and when–to draw that line. U.S. intelligence chief John Negroponte told TIME in April that Iran is five years away from having a nuclear weapon. But some nonproliferation experts worry about a different moment: when Iran is able to enrich enough uranium to fuel a bomb–a point that comes well before engineers actually assemble a nuclear device. Many believe that is when a country becomes a nuclear power. That red line, experts say, could be just a year away.

When a major newsmagazine like TIME devotes its cover story to a possible war with Iran, you know with this administration has essentially given them the story to print. Look at all the administration and Pentagon sources cited in this report. That doesn’t happen by accident; it only happens in this administration after a deliberate decision point has been reached.

By itself, this TIME article is yet one more sign that the gears of the American military machine have been set in motion because Bush has “decided,” once again, a little war is a good thing. It’s only a question now of when: before or after the November elections?