> “This is clearly an act of war, and Iran (or most any country) could be expected to react accordingly....”
Who would Iran attack? The US Carrier Group? I don’t think so. Iraq? I don’t think so. Pakistan? Nope.
Iran will attack nothing outside its borders because the Iranian people will not support any such attack unless first attacked within their borders. The only war recourse for the regime in Iran is to plan attacks through their terrorist network which are kept hidden from the Iranian people. But an uprising of the Iranian people will put a stop to any planned terrorist strikes. This is key; to use the Iranian people’s disgust for the mullahs as a weapon in the war. Starvation is the tipping point.
Starvation is always local; people who are starving, who see family and neighbors dead of starvation, cease to care about politics or political reasons given them for the starvation; they only care about finding food and they will kill anyone that gets in the way of their getting food.
It’s not complicated. It’s bitter medicine but will work inside Iraq according to Iranians that live outside Iran.
It is also the best way to conduct a war against the regime in Iran that both preserves the favorable view that the Iranian people hold for Americans and avoids a foreign hot war intrusion on Iranian ground which would only anger Iranians thereby empowering the mullahs.
You have a rather peculiar view of history. I'd suggest you read up on the response of the Irish to famine and starvation in 1846-7. And the Ukrainians during the famine and starvation of 1932-3. And the German people in the latter stages of WW II.
Starving people rapidly lose motivation, become listless and passive. It has been thus in every case, from Africa to the real life examples mentioned above. Iran had its chance to rise up when they were well fed. They failed. History says starving them will accomplish nothing. Your theory is at variance with reality.