The Bush administration is deeply divided over whether to launch air strikes against Iran.

The administration is split into two camps. One is led by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the State Department, which favors diplomacy and tough economic sanctions to compel Tehran to abandon its nuclear weapons program. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is said to be in the Rice camp. The other camp is led by Vice President Dick Cheney, who supports a massive air campaign to destroy as much of Iran’s nuclear weapons sites as possible.

“The administration is badly divided on the issue of Iran,” said a source close to the White House. “Rice and the State Department believe that diplomacy is the best way to solve the problem. Cheney and the hawks say that only the military option can stop Iran from getting their hands on nukes.”

The split in the administration comes as Iran continues to expand its geopolitical influence in the Middle East. Insight has learned that senior U.S. officials are convinced that Iran’s leaders, including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, are aware of efforts by some members of the Iranian government to send heavy weapons to the Taliban in Afghanistan.

U.S. officials said that Tehran’s goal is “to bleed” U.S.-led and NATO-led forces in Afghanistan.

Recently, ABC News reported that NATO officials intercepted several Iranian heavy arms shipments to the Taliban, in what they said was a major escalation of Iran’s proxy war against the United States and Britain. The arms included C4 explosives, advanced roadside bombs—the same ones that are currently being used against U.S. forces in Iraq by Shiite militants—and RPG-7mm rockets.

NATO officials said the arms shipments were part of a deliberate policy by Iran to bog down Western troops in a prolonged guerrilla war. They said Iran’s Revolutionary Guards’ Quds force was behind the weapons transfers.

"This is part of a considered policy," said the NATO analysis, "rather than the result of low-level corruption and weapons smuggling."   

Iran and the Taliban were arch rivals when the Taliban was in power in Afghanistan, and their cooperation has surprised some in the intelligence community.

"I think their goal is to make it very clear that Iran has the capability to make life worse for the United States on a variety of fronts," Seth Jones of the Rand Institute told ABC News, "even if they have to do some business with a group that has historically been their enemy." 

"These clearly have the hallmarks of the Iranian Revolution Guards' Quds force," Jones said.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair has publicly accused Iran of illegally providing arms to the Taliban in order to stir "chaos" and inflict more casualties on American and British troops.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut said Sunday the administration should seriously consider a military strike against Iran because Tehran is arming, financing and training Iraqi insurgents.

"I think we've got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq," Lieberman said. "And to me, that would include a strike over the border into Iran, where we have good evidence that they have a base at which they are training these people coming back into Iraq to kill our soldiers."

"By some estimates, they have killed as many as 200 American soldiers," he said. "Well, we can tell them we want them to stop that. But if there's any hope of the Iranians living according to the international rule of law and stopping, for instance, their nuclear weapons development, we can't just talk to them.

"If they don't play by the rules, we've got to use our force, and to me, that would include taking military action to stop them from doing what they're doing."