Could it be?

Well, I'm gobsmacked. Could some reality actually be seeping through the cracks and into the Shrub team?

First we have Secretary of State CantBe Right saying on Friday, as reported by CNN, that

an attack on Iran over its nuclear program is "not on the agenda at this point."

"We have many diplomatic tools still at our disposal and we intend to pursue them fully," Rice told a news conference Friday after a meeting with British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.

And now Donald Rumpelstiltskin has followed up by declaring

Iran is believed to be years away from having a nuclear weapon and the United States has decided to use diplomacy, not military action, in dealing with the issue,

CNN said on Sunday.

Now, let it be noted clearly that they left themselves considerable wiggle room. Rumpy said "I don't know if the [intelligence] estimates [of Iran's capabilities] are correct or not." And Veep "The Big" Dick Cheney called Iran

"a potential source for instability" in the region.

"It's a regime, obviously, that we've got major problems with, not only because of their search for nuclear weapons, also the fact they've been a prime state sponsor of terror over the years," Cheney said,

echoing language used in the buildup to the invasion of Iraq. Still, Rice and Rumsfeld have taken a clear step back from the much more threatening rhetoric used of late. As recently as January 17 Shrub pointedly refused to "take any option off the table."

I can't help but wonder if this has anything to do with the recent departures of some of the high-profile neocons from the administration, Doug Feith being the most recent example. Did their leaving allow for the change? Or did they leave because they were losing the debate over the next steps the Shrub team was going to take?

Or is this an attempt to defuse Seymour Hersh's report that the US is already carrying out secret reconnaissance missions in Iran?

Or, here's one more possibility: Did they undertake those missions and realize, as others have, that Iran's nuclear program, whatever its intentions, is so spread out at so many facilities, that an attack simply is not a practical notion - and they decided to make lemonade?

Whatever the reason - and I do suspect that the departure of the neocons is in some way connected - it's still a step down in the rhetoric and that is a good thing.