Reply #24: Thanks for that

[Clara T]

I guess. Such fun stuff huh? This is all quite par for the course as far as US involvement in the region. A short history of Mossadeghs Iranian Gov't overthrow in 1953 by the CIA gives a clear glimpse of how deeply the National Security State goes and also why this region is imperative to US interests and what lengths (depths?) they'll go to prevent anyone in that region from controlling their own resources.

This part in the excerpted article seems to be quite clear and important:
"The Iranians can achieve this in many ways, even if its nuke facilities are blasted to smithereens. Think of a few submerged oil tankers blocking oil traffic to the rest of the world? There will be no room for environmental cries here; they will drowned out by the shrills of the global economy, choked right at the straits.

Tehran may call this a "military blunder," which, incidentally is the title of a History Channel program on the controversial shooting down of an Iran Air Airbus A300 on July 3, 1988, by the USS Vincennes, exactly at the same spot. Close to 300 people died. If controversy still dogs that incident today, another mission creep in the middle east would flame justifications for any sort of reprisal.

Iran's military retaliation would only need to disrupt oil supply, not winning battles per se. It has other arsenals at its disposal to achieve this target. In this game of brinkmanship, tit for tat verbal provocations between Washington (and Tel Aviv) and Tehran is enough to rattle stock market nerves, and major industries are undoubtedly lobbying the White House right now to go easy with the rhetoric. Only in this era of Peak Oil can verbal threats be used so effectively as a weapon."

http://www.evworld.com/view.cfm?section=article&storyid=972