[Schwaeky]

if you’re referring to Iran, the Enterprise and the rest of the Third Fleet can keep them bottled up behind the straits of hormuz... Nothing like a Carrier Battle Group to ruin a mohammedan potentate’s scheming plans...

[Jeff Head]

What's developing overall is a China-Russia-North Korea-Iran-Venezuela strategic relationship that could get very dicey for us, particularly depending on how active Russia wants to become in it and how coordinated their efforts become. I expect, if they got serious that we would see ourselves being drawn into a Venezuela-Iran-North Korean situation before the main acts started.

If we are still in Iraq, and then going into Iran, concurrently faced with hot spots with Venezuela and North Korea, and maybe through in Syria...it would tax us significantly and that is when I would expect China to make its move on Taiwan and elsewhere, potentially with Russian assistance.

The way to avoid that is to take them down individually...almost pre-emptively, so that they cannot build an overly taxing situation by acting in concert. Chavez is giving us every reason (IMHO) to start with him.