[WOSG]

"It's foolish to study this problem only in a military context without pondering the economic fallout of a likely cutoff of all Persian Gulf crude for several weeks during and after an Iran campaign."

You forget... in the runup to the gulf war, fears raised the price of oil ... but the first night of the gulf war, oil prices DROPPED and kept going down.

Military strike would not be a crisis but a resolution.

[Travis McGee]

That is one way the dice could land.

But don't discount the effects of snake eyes instead of lucky 7.

Just because the dice landed our way one time (against an Iraq with no air defenses, useable SCUDs etc after years of sanctions) does not mean it will turn out the same way against a robust Iran, with an apocolypse-desiring madman for a leader.

[vrwc0915]

there is just no surplus oil, Refineries operate on a just in time shipment if the ships stop it takes weeks to shut them down and start them back up.. And a whole lot of capacitor was affected by the hurricanes

[Cicero]

We're not supposed to talk about oil, but I hope one of the reasons Bush invaded Iraq was to secure that oil before it became necessary to deal with Syria, Iran, and the big imponderable, Saudi Arabia.

Securing the oil supply is vital. But I agree with you that it's safer to act, in the present situation, than to sit by and do nothing.