George Bush doesn't deserve all the blame here, but he has certainly exasperated the situation by making us into the world's enemy through his fool's folly in Iraq. The Boston Globe today lays out some of the possible retaliations Iran might take if a bombing campaign is launched to destroy sites identified to be a part of their nuclear program. From the Globe:
Iran is prepared to launch attacks using long-range missiles, secret commando units, and terrorist allies planted around the globe in retaliation for any strike on the country's nuclear facilities, according to new US intelligence assessments and military specialists.
[snip]
A major worry: newly acquired long-range missiles. Obtained with the assistance of North Korea, the Shahab 3 could strike Israel and perhaps even hit the periphery of Europe, according to a recent report by the Pentagon's National Air and Space Intelligence Center.
[snip]
Meanwhile, Iranian agents and members of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, widely believed to have a large presence in Iraq, could attempt to foment an uprising by the their fellow Shi'ite majority in Iraq or join insurgents in directly attacking US troops there, Negroponte warned.
Sound pretty bad, right? Well, that's not the half of it. What the Globe doesn't mention is that Iran could launch those missiles into Saudi Arabia's Ghawar oil fields and production facilities.
That, combined with Iran shutting down their own oil production could take as many as eight million barrels of oil a day, or roughly ten percent, out of the world supply.
This is why we shouldn't needlessly piss off people like Hugo Chavez. He could also shut off the spigots and push the shortage to over ten million barrels a day.
The result of such an oil shock would be to send the world economy into a full scale depression including a resulting food shortages. It takes six barrels of oil to bring a single cow to market.
We'd better find a better way to deal with Iran.
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