Big Dick experiencing a senior moment?

Vice President Dick Cheney said on Thursday that Iran was at the top of the administration's list of world trouble spots and expressed concern that Israel "might well decide to act first" to eliminate any nuclear threat from Tehran.

"You look around the world at potential trouble spots, Iran is right at the top of the list," Cheney said in an interview aired on MSNBC.

"Given the fact that Iran has a stated policy that their objective is the destruction of Israel, the Israelis might well decide to act first and let the rest of the world worry about cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterwards," he said.

"We don't want a war in the Middle East if we can avoid it. And certainly in the case of the Iranian situation, I think everybody would be best suited by or best treated and dealt with if we could deal with it diplomatically," Cheney added.
  Reuters article

Excuse me? Where is Iraq? I thought it was in the Middle East, but maybe I'm mistaken.

So, was that the signal to Israel?

"Real men want to go to Tehran." So went the mordant barroom quip--variously attributed to Undersecretary of State John Bolton and other neoconservative hawks--during the --long buildup to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Saddam Hussein's ruling clique in Baghdad, it was said, would be only the first in a series of rogue regimes to get crushed under the Bush Administration's heel.

[...]

With the bulk of the U.S. military tied down in Iraq for the foreseeable future, the Bush Administration may not be able to pull off another war against a more formidable foe.

But what about the kind of air strike that Israel launched in 1981 to knock out Saddam Hussein's Osiraq reactor?

There has been persistent speculation that a reprise of the Osiraq raid, mounted either by Israel or by the United States, is in the works. Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz fueled the speculation in September when he said: "All options have to be taken into account to prevent [Iranian nuclear capability]." Ominously, in June, Israel ordered nearly 5,000 "smart bombs" from the United States that can penetrate six-foot concrete walls such as those that might encase Iranian nuclear sites.

But Iran learned from Saddam's mistake. Instead of concentrating its enrichment and processing equipment in one place, the Islamic Republic has dispersed it throughout the country, including in heavily populated neighborhoods of the capital. Not only are some research facilities protected in concrete bunkers, but others might be underground--and no one claims to know where all of the facilities are. Pollack says he has talked with Israeli pilots who are "absolutely certain" that they could not destroy the nuclear program in its entirety. "The fact that you are hearing the Israelis rattle their sabers so much is the best evidence" that a reprise is not imminent, Pollack concludes. "If the Israelis really were planning an attack, you would hear dead silence."
  Progressive article

Maybe. But then what are those Americans doing on reconnaissance missions in Iran?