Iran vows to hit any country that stages attack

[Douglas Carpenter]

118. they can't win the war but they can cause a lot of damage and they will

and make it very, very costly. Just how much they can and will retaliate is hard to say. But given that Israel alone does not have the means to significantly downgrade Iran's nuclear program with its multiple sites hidden in North Korean style deep earth bunkers - it is almost certain that Iran will retaliate against American interest in the gulf. They will feel that they have to. Iran may not have equivalent technology. But they have enormous amounts of basic technology - much of it hidden in hostile and inapproachable terrain. Thus America is dragged into a long, costly and difficult campaign.

Needless to say, a sustained period of stratospheric oil price rising $200 to $300 per barrel will have devastating consequences for the global economy.