The flurry of rebuttals and reactions to the reports that America has drawn up secret plans to launch a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities if necessary may please the proponents of psychological warfare; it can only dismay America’s allies and those attempting to negotiate a halt to Iran’s nuclear programme.

Hawks on the fringes of the Republican Party say that an attack could be “over before anyone knew what happened”. The White House, in keeping with its policy of not ruling out any option, has not denied the report, published today in The New Yorker magazine. But Jack Straw dismissed all such talk as “completely nuts”. And he reiterated the Government’s view that such an attack was “inconceivable”.

The Bush Administration has long believed that Iran has been negotiating in bad faith over its nuclear intentions — a position shared by the disillusioned European foreign ministers who have spent two fruitless years attempting to persuade Tehran to abide by its treaty obligations and undertakings to the International Atomic Energy Agency. But although Washington has long been pushing the IAEA to refer Iran to the United Nations Security Council, it has been careful in recent months to tone down the rhetoric.

It is the sceptics now outside the Administration who have little faith in the UN route and who believe that sanctions, even if enforce- able, will have no effect. The only way, they maintain, to guarantee regional security is a pre-emptive strike on Iran’s nuclear sites. This is not the mainstream position in Washington. It would almost certainly be opposed by both the State Department, worried about the global reaction, and the Pentagon, stretched by Iraq and unable to deliver assurances that it could protect all US assets around the world from retaliatory terrorist strikes.

It would be neither surprising nor wrong if contingency plans for a military strike had been examined: any policy option must always be considered. That they have been presented as though they were soon to be implemented, however, is irresponsible.

There are three immediate dangers. The first is that all such talk reinforces the perception in Muslim countries of an Administration that is institution-ally “anti-Muslim”. The second is that Washington’s allies find it ever harder to maintain a united front on Iran if voters believe that this implies condoning military action. And thirdly, such talk takes on a life of its own, and gives hardliners in Tehran the excuse to quash opposition on the pretext of the need for national unity.

The effects of such talk may be seen not in Iran, but next door. Iran’s interference in Iraq is massive, unscrupulous and potentially extremely de- stabilising. There is ample evidence that Iranian weapons and funding have been finding their way to the insurgency, even if most of the victims are fellow Shias. The brutal logic is that Tehran wants to make quite clear not only its ability to manipulate the political balance, but also to demonstrate to Washington that Iran is a power that cannot be ignored.

That message has got home. The US has put out feelers to Iran to discuss how to speed up the formation of a viable Iraqi government. Tehran, which has no long-term interest in civil war, might respond. But there is, understandably, linkage with the nuclear stand-off. For this reason, Washington has every reason to act with caution.