The drumbeat of disclosures about Iran’s nuclear weapons program increases the likelihood that at tomorrow night’s debate, President Bush will be asked about Iran. Vice President Cheney and Senator Edwards got into the Iran issue Tuesday night in their debate, and, at first glance, it seemed like a convoluted role reversal. Mr. Edwards complained, “They ceded responsibility to dealing with it to the Europeans.” Wait – isn’t that Senator Kerry’s plan for dealing with Iraq?

Mr. Cheney said, “We’ve got sanctions on Iran now, we may well want to go to the U.N. Security Council and ask for even tougher sanctions if they don’t live up to their obligations under the initial – the International Atomic Energy Agency, a nonproliferation treaty.”

Yet Mr. Bush lectured Mr. Kerry last week: “We’ve already sanctioned Iran. We can’t sanction them anymore.”

Mr. Cheney explained in the debate: “We’re working with the Brits and the Germans and the French, who have been negotiating with the Iranians. We recently were actively involved in meeting with the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency. And as I say, there will be a follow-up meeting in November, to determine whether or not Iran’s living up to their commitments and obligations, and if they aren’t, my guess is then the Board of Governors will recommend sending the whole matter to the United Nations Security Council for the application of international sanctions, which I think would be exactly the right way to go.”

The Germans and the French? Weren’t they the ones Mr. Bush was talking about yesterday when he said, “the senator would have America bend over backwards to satisfy a handful of governments with agendas different from our own.” (Excerpts of Mr. Bush’s remarks appear at page 11.)

The “Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency” and “the United Nations Security Council”? Weren’t they the ones Mr. Bush was talking about yesterday when he said, “I’ll never hand over America’s security decisions to foreign leaders and international bodies that do not have America’s interests at heart”?

We’re tempted to suggest that Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney debate the matter, but we’re afraid Mr. Bush would lose: not on the substance, but on debating style.

Anyway, our sources have tried to clear things up for us in such a way that sophisticated viewers of tomorrow night’s debate – and voters on Election Day – may want to keep in mind. When Mr. Cheney talks about bringing Iran to the U.N. Security Council and imposing international sanctions, he’s not doing because he has any actual faith in the efficacy of such sanctions. He knows that the United Nations is widely discredited. Just this week, the U.N. was unapologetically acknowledging its practice of employing members of the Hamas terrorist group as “relief workers” in the West Bank and Gaza. And the interim Iraqi government was accusing a U.N. official in charge of the sanctions on Iraq, Benon Sevan, of having personally received oil rights from Saddam Hussein that were worth $1.2 million.

Instead, taking the Iran file to the U.N. Security Council and imposing sanctions that Iran will violate is a trap that will allow America to portray the regime in Tehran, as, like Saddam Hussein, a violator of international law. It sets the stage for American action either to disarm Iran or to change the regime in Tehran, as America did in Baghdad. The wisdom of such a strategy can be debated – it’s hard to believe that Security Council members like Russia and Red China, which have aided Iran’s nuclear and missile programs, will now side against it. But America went to the U.N. before liberating Iraq, too. When it came down to it, Mr. Bush was not deterred by opposition from permanent members of the Security Council.

When the Kerry-Edwards team talks about the French and the United Nations, though, they are not doing so as a prelude to American action. The senators are doing so in the misguided belief that the collection of corrupt bureaucrats and ambassadors of dictatorships that sit at Turtle Bay can actually be relied upon to protect America.

It is a dangerous delusion. And it is a difference that, for all the mixed messages, Mr. Bush actually articulated yesterday with impressive clarity.