The Kingdom better be very careful here. Geography points to battleground Iraq and the Kingdom, even with the Gulf states, and that is prblematical would be sorely outmanned. Their far superior air assets are a plus, but wars are won on the ground and if the battleground is Mesopotamia the Kingdom is in real trouble.
My ex-brother in law went to SA for 5 years after he retired from the USAF to train Saudi flight mechanics to maintain their F-15s. He said it was an incredible waste of time. They were lazy and arrogant and when they weren’t they were praying all the time.
Every “war” since Viet Nam shows you cannot move armor without air superiority/dominance.
And without armor you cannot win. Just like ISIS.
An bunch of Shiite warriors would learn that lesson.
Iran’s only hope would be to take out all Saudi airfields with their missiles, and the Saudis have good missile defense and a high tolerance for casualties.
Iran would also have to worry about the Israeli and Jordanian air forces. And ALL the stuff the US would give them, to include battlefield intelligence.
I do not believe Iran can project military forces into Arabia. But they can sure infiltrate terrorists through Iraq and Yemen.
Buy oil futures. The Strait will close for a time, and the markets will freak. Sell them 2 days after the Strait closes and before the US conclusively intervenes.
“Geography points to battleground Iraq”
The fringe extremist Shi’ite sect that currently rules Iran (called Twelvers) believe that the final “end-of-times” battle between Sunnis and Shi’ites is pre-ordained to take place in Iraq.
The ideology of the current Iranian Regime is very much built around a great end of the world battle, which brings the Last Imam (the Mahdi) back out from “occultation” to lead them to final victory, and results in the Kingdom of God on Earth.
The Iranians often publicly promote the bringing on of the final eschatological battle, as the best outcome they could hope for - all the more reason to keep nukes out of their hands.