I have no idea whether the administration is actually serious about going to war with Iran. The mutterings have been going on for a long time, and so far... nada.

The problem is the problem that sane men have dealing with people who are delusional; and I include in that the bulk of the US's foreign policy elite, who, as Sean-Paul has noted, are reluctantly onside with attacking Iran.

I will note first of all that Iran is not that close to having nuclear weapons and delivery systems (I am reminded of the old joke from the 70's about India's nuclear deterrent. "Nuclear land mines.") Certainly even if one accepts that it is necessary to "do something" it isn't necessary to do something right now - the US has years.

Here's what can happen if the US attacks Iran and Iran decides to retaliate. First - they use missiles to shut the strait of Hormuz. As Israel and Hezbollah just demonstrated, no - you can't take the missiles out with air power. So you can't keep the strait reliably open with airpower. And if you sail a fleet in there you'll put it at risk from Iranian anti-ship missiles.

This will cause a huge spike in the price of oil, and possibly an absolute shortage of oil - there will just not be enough oil for everyone in the world who imports oil. By this - read: Europe, China and Japan are going to get hit too. They aren't going to be real pleased with the US. The economic shock of the oil prices will be the proximate cause for throwing the US (and likely world) economy into its long overdue tailspin, and it will turn a hard landing into a recession; or a recession possibly into a depression.

Second - Iranian backed militias in Iraq rise against the US, while Iranian troops overrun US supply lines, which are overextended and vulnerable to an Iranian push. Air supply is not possible. With ammo, fuel and supplies in short order, the US army will have to either bunker up or try a fighting retreat. The US will have to go to full airwar (if it can arrange sufficient basing), including calling out the B-52's. You can kiss Iraq goodbye, and you can expect to lose more men than you've lost to date - probably in a period of a few weeks.

Third - western Afghanistan will go up in flames. Iran has more influence there than the US, too. Expect the Taliban to take advantage as well, and watch as the NATO expeditionary forces, while not in so much danger as US forces in Iraq, take it on the chin - hard.

Fourth - world outrage. Don't expect the US, China and Europe to laugh off the US crashing their economies with a stupid and unecessary war. The US doesn't have a lot of rope left with any of these countries after the stupidity of Iraq, the torture and the constant insults and warmongering. If the economy starts to ditch big time, and if Europe and China decide that they're looking at an unavoidable economic shock, they may decide to pull the props out from underneath the US economy and worry about picking up the pieces later. And since the US is completely dependent on foreign financing of its funds (and trust me, in an attack on Iran, private investors aren't going to be clamoring to buy treasuries) a decision by the central banks to dump US dollars would be devestating.

Even if one accepts that Iran is seriously after nukes; believes that they shouldn't be allowed to have them; and thinks that diplomacy won't work - this is not the time for military action. Resolve Iraq first, and either put the US's financial house in order or get the buy-in of China, Saudi Arabia and Japan (at the very least) then do it. Doing it before then could well be the last major act of the American century.