It seems obvious to me that desperate nations will do desperate things. This Saudi total dominance over oil production and the global economy isn't a good thing. Any input that happens as quickly and dramatically as this decline in oil prices did, from a logical standpoint, has to cause an extreme reaction. There's been no time for planning and adjustment.
Your scenario sounds possible but aggressive. One thing that has to be considered here is the wild card of out of control terrorism. Russia or Iran or whomever don't have to advertise doing anything with an outright invasion. Couldn't they cause stuff to happen and make it seem as if ISIS, AlQaida, or the Taliban or who knows what group of crazies are responsible?
Iran needs one of two things:
$140/BBL oil, OR
Saudi Arabia goes away for good and they control BOTH the oil and at least part of the KSA’s $800B of sovereign cash reserves in the bank.
Everybody seems to forget that Saudi Arabia is the ONLY country in the world named after a family. The entire place is a family run, privately held business serving only the House of Saud. From the perspective of Shiites, nothing could be more arrogant than elevating yourself above even allah, which is essentially what the Saud family has been doing since the 70’s.
The Sauds, being Sunni on top of arrogant, and not being all that adherent into the bargain, could easily be seen by Shiites as being essentially apostate.
Terrorism, which is what we’ve been calling it for the last 30 years, and not ‘Holy War’, which is what THEY’VE been calling it for the last 30 years, has been the prelude.
Shiites will say, “Look, it’s not like we weren’t completely up front about all of this. All bombing the KSA did was escalate things, and eventually that was going to happen anyway. The time was right. The KSA was squeezing Iran and Russia, and the Russians were willing to bomb the KSA. All we did was take the opportunity to do something we planned on doing all along.
This looks like a war about oil. It’s not. It’s a war about Allah. The KSA’s economic weapons were just another tactic in that war, but know that its always been war.”
From their perspective, there’s nothing bold about it. From Russia’s perspective, the West has never been weaker and more indifferent and self centered.