Last week there were several discussions on Iran and its capabilities. One freeper thought Iran would make the first move knowing that war was inevitable and block the Persian Gulf by taking out several huge oil tankers and mining the area thus block the shipping lanes cutting off the oil supply causing a world economic crisis.
If you know war is coming do you wait and let others win all the battles or do you cause as much damage as possible in hopes that others rise up and come to your aid (possible exciting other islamic countries to help because of your "victory" or perhaps one of those who will be desperately harmed by the loss of oil might be desperate enough to come to your aid)?
You bring up a very good point. The Iranians need to pre-emptively seal the Persian Gulf. They need to cut oil supplies to the West for purely strategic reasons. Shutting down the Strait would also help to prevent a U.S. buildup of forces in Iraq for a land war. And it would help deny acces to the Gulf for carrier based operations. It would be in Iran's best interest to do this if they do intend on conflict. They will also need support from Russia on the north. Watch Russia very closely. If Russia blocks sanctions, or choses to ignore them, we may be facing Russia as an ally of Iran and then we are stalemated. Unless we want a confrontation with Russia. They are flexing their energy muscle with cut-off or reduces supply of natural gas to Europe and former Soviet satellites. I think Russia is serving notice to these countries. If they want energy, they do thins Russia's way. This easily could turn into a global conflict.
... If you know war is coming do you wait and let others win all the battles....
I would guess that only Saddam was that stupid. It's hard to believe that the next nutcase can be so stupid as not to have noticed what happened to Saddam.
If I was in charge of Iran, and absolutely felt the need to start a war, I'd activate the thousands of Hezbollah across the U.S. and get my Chinese friends firmly on the hook before I took any noticable action. That and double my payments to my favorite U.S. Senators and media allies.