Well, oil prices are down, the Iranians are complaining about it, the Russians are losing a lot of their discretionary income. So, I think the issue about high oil prices and “over a barrel” is removed.

To me, in a lot of ways, Iranian leadership has kind of painted itself into a corner. If a nuke goes off (in a terrorist attack), they’ll get blamed (fairly or not) for it, and suffer the consequences. If they use the nuke themselves, they’ll get hit back (how could Israel not?). If they don’t use them, then they’ll look like cowards/losers to their own fanatics, and like they wasted a whole lotta money for nothing to their moderates.

If only a ‘shouting match’ happens, where shipping rates in the PG go up a lot (due to a couple of mines going off in the sealanes), who has minesweepers, and who could declare that they’ll sweep lanes for oil-tanker convoys? The USN. (very little, but that’s a whole lot more than nothing). Who’d believe the Iranians. In fact, if a couple of mines went off, the US would actually come out ahead by over-emphasizing the problem, because then the insurance rates for tankers that aren’t in mine-sweeping convoys would go way up, and then nobody’d buy Iranian oil.

If a shooting war starts, then the Iranians might be able to stop oil shipment for days/weeks, but how long would their SSM launchers really last against the USN, UAVs, USAF, and the Sunni governments, before the launchers were eliminated, or simply that the risk had been determined, and factored into the insurance calculations? (just like they are with the Somalia pirates – it’s just “a cost of business”). In the meantime, Iranian oil shipments go to zero, their foreign investments are frozen, their government goes bankrupt. And most importantly, their mullah’s cash flow goes to zero, which means their mansions in Switzerland don’t get paid for.