Just as there is good reason to be distrustful of the extremist rulers in Iran, there is reason for caution with the Bush administration’s warnings about the immediacy of danger from Tehran’s nuclear program. This is not to suggest equivalence between the two, but the administration’s overstated buildup for war in Iraq makes it difficult to trust it now with questions concerning Iran.

Despite this week’s boast from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that the country had enriched uranium, Iran is still many years from producing nuclear weapons, according to experts. U.S. intelligence officials say Iran is five to 10 years away from making fuel for a nuclear weapon. The head of Russia’s nuclear agency said that Iran’s claims were unrealistic.

The Bush administration appears to be making a case for military action against Tehran by playing up the danger the country, and its potential nuclear weapons, pose to the United States. And in a piece in The New Yorker magazine, investigative reporter Seymour Hersh wrote that the U.S. military has intensified planning for an air attack against Iran, possibly using nuclear bunker-buster bombs to destroy Iran’s underground facilities.

Mr. Hersh quoted an anonymous former defense official who still has dealings with the White House as saying that military planning was premised on the notion that “a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government.” The official said he was shocked by such logic, which also preceded military action against Iraq.

As a former Pentagon official said to Mr. Hersh: “What will 1.2 billion Muslims think the day we attack Iran?” He said the result would be increased attacks on U.S. citizens and facilities around the world.

President Bush last week dismissed talk of military action against Iran as “wild speculation.” However, it is hard to overlook the parallels with Iraq. Before the 2003 invasion, the administration insisted that it would exhaust diplomatic avenues while at the same time warning that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and posed a direct threat to the security of the United States. Yet, administration claims that two trailers found in Iraq were biological weapons labs have been proven false, something the administration may have known before it made its claims.

The administration’s overplaying the threat from Iraq is likely contributing to public nervousness about the president’s ability to handle Iran. In a recent nationwide poll conducted by the Los Angeles Times, 54 percent of respondents said they did not trust President Bush to “make the right decision about whether we should go to war with Iran.”

While President Ahmadinejad and his rhetoric are troubling, there should not be a rush to deal militarily with Iran. There is still time for diplomacy, sanctions and other avenues to slow or stop the country’s nuclear work.