Will The US Attack Iran? No.

Uri Avnery, an Israeli journalist, writes a great article about how a potential strike on Iran by the US, or by proxy Israel, will never happen. A quick look at a map is all you need to see his point. Iran controls the narrow Straight of Hormuz. Attack Iran and no oil makes it past this narrow gateway.

"The inevitable reaction to the bombing of Iran will be the blocking of this Strait. That should have been self-evident even without the explicit declaration by one of Iran's highest ranking generals a few days ago. Iran dominates the whole length of the Strait. They can seal it hermetically with their missiles and artillery, both land based and naval.

If that happens, the price of oil will skyrocket - far beyond the 200 dollars-per-barrel that pessimists dread now. That will cause a chain reaction: a world-wide depression, the collapse of whole industries and a catastrophic rise in unemployment in America, Europe and Japan."

Reflecting on the recent Israeli Air Force exercises and subsequent Iranian response of test firing their Shihab missiles, Uri notes:

"Once, such activities were called 'saber rattling', nowadays the preferred term is 'psychological warfare'. They are good for failed politicians with domestic needs, to divert attention, to scare citizens. They also make excellent television. But simple common sense tells us that whoever plans a surprise strike does not proclaim this from the rooftops. Menachem Begin did not stage public exercises before sending the bombers to destroy the Iraqi reactor, and even Ehud Olmert did not make a speech about his intention to bomb a mysterious building in Syria."

The threat of Iranian nuclear power is put into perspective by Uri:

"For years now, we have been bombarded by a propaganda campaign that depicts the Iranian nuclear effort as an existential threat to Israel. Forget the Palestinians, forget Hamas and Hizbullah, forget Syria - the sole danger that threatens the very existence of the State of Israel is the Iranian nuclear bomb.

I repeat what I have said before: I am not prey to this existential Angst. True, life is more pleasant without an Iranian nuclear bomb, and Ahmadinejad is not very nice either. But if the worst comes to the worst, we will have a "balance of terror" between the two nations, much like the American-Soviet balance of terror that saved mankind from World War III, or the Indian-Pakistani balance of terror that provides a framework for a rapprochement between those two countries that hate each other's guts."

Read more of Uri's article