This is clearly an act of war, and Iran (or most any country) could be expected to react accordingly (but with time to plan, etc.) If it is to be war, better to hit them hard and fast, and try to take out any chance of dirty bomb or chem counterattack as things ramp up.
> “This is clearly an act of war, and Iran (or most any country) could be expected to react accordingly....”
Who would Iran attack? The US Carrier Group? I don’t think so. Iraq? I don’t think so. Pakistan? Nope.
Iran will attack nothing outside its borders because the Iranian people will not support any such attack unless first attacked within their borders. The only war recourse for the regime in Iran is to plan attacks through their terrorist network which are kept hidden from the Iranian people. But an uprising of the Iranian people will put a stop to any planned terrorist strikes. This is key; to use the Iranian people’s disgust for the mullahs as a weapon in the war. Starvation is the tipping point.
Starvation is always local; people who are starving, who see family and neighbors dead of starvation, cease to care about politics or political reasons given them for the starvation; they only care about finding food and they will kill anyone that gets in the way of their getting food.
It’s not complicated. It’s bitter medicine but will work inside Iraq according to Iranians that live outside Iran.
It is also the best way to conduct a war against the regime in Iran that both preserves the favorable view that the Iranian people hold for Americans and avoids a foreign hot war intrusion on Iranian ground which would only anger Iranians thereby empowering the mullahs.