It consists today of several determining factors. The first is called petroleum. Is the effect that would have an airstrike against Iran on its price imaginable? The specialists predict that, minutes after the first bombs explode in Iranian territory, a barrel of crude would reach 200 dollars. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which transports oil from the region, through a simple mining of its waters by the Iranian fleet, would mean another big increase in the price of crude oil. That, without the astronomical increase of navigation locks that would pay for the oil companies. Iran is a medium-sized regional power that has ever invaded a neighboring country but has a great capacity for retaliation. The bases of United States in Iraq would become targets for multiplied international terrorism, supported from the neighboring country.

Its vulnerable lines of supply would be at the mercy of the Iranian disruptive actions. The same thing would happen with the offshore areas of other States in the Persian Gulf, easily attacked by Iran or terrorist groups controlled from there. And should not ignore the possibility that Hamas or Hezbollah to extend their action to other territories where they already have enough roots. Some senior U.S. military commanders are aware of all of the above. Even who occupies the top military, Admiral Mullen, has declared that an attack against nuclear facilities in Iran would create some problems for which hardly we are prepared.

Mohamed El Baradei, the Egyptian director of the International Atomic Energy Agency has expressed in the same direction: A military attack, in my opinion, would be the worst of all possible. It would turn the region into a ball of fire. In the past I have already quoted the phrase that circulated by Washington before invading Iraq: everyone wants to go to Baghdad: but the real men yearn to go against Tehran. A faction of enlightened, gathered around Vice President Cheney, advocated this strategy. The influence that such ballpark tahures exercise still on the declining Bush Presidency, will depend on what happens the next few months in that critical region of the globe. Alberto Piris General of artillery in the original book author and source of the article.