POLL: Do you think Bush will start a war with Iran before he leaves office?

[Selatius]

Poll question: POLL: Do you think Bush will start a war with Iran before he leaves office?

Just sending up a weather balloon here. Personally, I'm agnostic on the issue of war; there's a lot of variables that have to be accounted for, mainly blind ideology vs. economic reality vs. military reality. This is how I measure things up in case of war:

We have the warplanes and the heavy bombers to rip down Iran's defense infrastructure in days if not hours, with Diego Garcia as being the obvious staging point for B-2, B-1, and B-52 bombers. We've got the naval firepower and capability as well. The Iranian Air Force would likely be wiped out on the ground before they could get into the air with a barrage of cruise missiles targeted at runways, and major command nodes and communication centers will be wiped out quickly. If we're opting for an air war, then we have the necessary number of special forces to help in pin-prick attacks on Iranian targets. Also, I suspect Iranian anti-aircraft defenses, although stronger than Iraq's defenses in the 1990s, will probably be taken out in days as well, probably with the loss of a small number of warplanes. We're definitely going to aim for Iran's nuclear facilities and hit them as hard as possible to set them back. (Whether or not the US attempts to use nuclear warhead-tipped bunker busters on deeply buried facilities is open to speculation)

The big problems though are economic and military in nature. When Iran retaliates, they will not retaliate in the conventional sense with massed armies and warplanes. They will likely use asymmetrical warfare. They're probably going to order their intelligence agents in places like Iraq and Saudi Arabia to begin sabotage operations with Saudi oil pipelines and to begin stepped-up weapons smuggling to Shia militias in Iraq and encourage those militias to begin killing as many US troops as possible in Iraq. On top of that, they're probably going to encourage Hezbollah to begin rocketing northern Israel to provoke a wider conflict in the Middle East and tie up US assets in the region. Since Iran signed a mutual defense pact with Syria, Iran may try to invoke the pact and drag Syria into the growing war to divert US attention and tie up even more US forces in a new front. If Hezbollah is successful in goading Israel to retaliate, then Lebanon may become involved as Israel may attempt to invade to crush Hezbollah.

With such a conflict, it's likely the situation in Iraq will deteriorate even further. It's likely a Shia backlash in Iraq will occur against US troops, and US troops will now have to contend with Sunni and Shia militias with backing from Iranian agents. Worse yet, the Green Zone and other major US bases of operation in Iraq will have to deal with the threat of incoming Iranian scud missiles fired from mobile launchers in Iran. During the 1st Gulf War, the US had a terrible time destroying Iraqi scud launchers precisely because they were mobile. This leaves even less room for the US to address the Kurds in northern Iraq, which would likely increase the chances of a Turkish invasion of northern Iraq in the name of crushing the Kurds and securing the Turkish border.

The economic outlook is grim. The price of oil will be well into the 100s range, and the Iranians will try to mine the Hormuz Strait or use anti-ship missiles on mobile launchers to sink US merchant ships and oil tankers trying to move through. If the Iranians are successful, any oil tankers and merchant ships behind the Hormuz Strait will be trapped. Iranian crude oil will, for all intents and purposes, also be taken off the market during the war. This will cause market panics and oil supply disruptions worldwide. The US economy will suffer massive oil price shocks, and there will likely be massive lay-offs and even higher food price inflation to levels not seen before. A recession, the depths of which are open to speculation, will be extremely likely if war occurs with Iran.

You're looking at the potential for a region-wide war that COULD involve up to six nations in the area. I'm not going to address whether or not Putin is serious about retaliating for destroying Russia's source for cheap oil because part of me is still incredulous to the idea that he would order something like, for instance, the destruction of aircraft runways in Diego Garcia by Russian subs carrying cruise missiles.