Americans get a rather considerable free ride by having the dollar as the world's central reserve currency. That is one brick that cannot come out of the wall.
Going to war with Iran is a very tough call. Clearing the Straits of Sunburn missiles, eliminating Tehran's nuclear program and drying up jihadist infiltration into Iraq would be a nice bonus while defending the dollar's role as the central reserve currency. When Saddam started selling oil for Euros he sealed his fate, so we know the precedent.
Part of the difficulty rests in Iran's immense capacity to strike at the West around the world. Tehran's intelligence capacity far exceeds Baghdad's prewar ability as is seen with the mounting American casualties in Iraq. Should the Iranian government survive a tactical nuclear first strike by America, then the West will take hits around the globe for a long time.
Then again, if the Islamic Entente succeeds in collapsing the Western economic structure (and it is very fragile now) they indeed may have launched their own successful first strike. Difficult decisions ahead for DC on many fronts, however they cannot permit oil to be sold for Euros in Tehran.
With next year's oil bourse opening, Tehran now controls the tempo and has found the round table...
J
BUMP. From your post, the stakes are high enough to warrant risking the wrath of Teheran -
-Increased Hizbullah activity - perhaps even in the US
-Efforts to deny the Persian Gulf for oil shipments
-Increasing agitation and unrest, if not rebellion, by the Shia minorities of the Sheikhdoms of Araby
-Turning Basra, Faw and Southern Iraq into a warzone - perhaps even a push into Kuwait.
-Use Iranian Azeris to stir things up in Azerbaijan.
-Move into Herat, Afghanistan