The long delayed America/Iran War is about to begin.
Maybe.
For 30 years the blood thirsty mullahs and according to them the equally blood thirsty Americans have been eying each other just waiting for that one good excuse to unleash the dogs of war.
Actually not so much.
If in 30 years America couldn’t find an excuse to bomb the crap out of Iran no one was looking very hard.
Indeed one could say that for 30 years America has done a very good job of avoiding war and so have the mullahs.
Oh there have been provocations, incidents, sometimes even shots fired but nothing like a real shooting war.
All that could change after the first US bomb is dropped on Syria.
Yes we know this is envisioned to be a limited action designed to spank the Syrians for using chemical weapons.
Good luck with that.
Syria for Iran is like Mexico for America.
Losing it for the mullahs would be an existential threat to their own hold on power.
That is why Iran is bankrolling the Syrian government and why there are thousands of Iranian and Lebanese ‘volunteers’ now fighting and dying in Syria.
The Iranians simply cannot afford to lose Syria and if America gets militarily involved they will fight back.
As long as that battle is confined to Syria or even Lebanon and Persia the American public should have no real problem with this limited war.
The problem with a limited war is that both sides have to agree on the limits.
And we don’t think Iran is going to be cool with that.
In a month from now when a Hizbullah, Iranian or Syrian Alawite martyr blows up an American base or takes American prisoners hostage or perhaps even strikes in America itself, is America going to stick to its self imposed limits?
Or will our President and Senate call righteously for blood?
We expect so and we would be probably beating the drum of more war ourselves but not without an ironic sub sonic beat.
For all the brinkmanship America and Iran have played in the last 30 years it would be ironic indeed if this war begins because of an off the cuff remark made last year about red lines.
The last war that began for a similarly stupid reason started 99 years ago in the city of Sarajevo. By the time it ended four years later more than 9 million soldiers and perhaps triple the number of civilians had been killed.