You might be right about their development though, I dunno...

By the by, Jay the Historian has pointed out some Israeli resiliances and Iranian weaknesses.

 

Personally I think Iran would lose unless, to pay homage to an author on global geopolitics aimed at predicting the future, they can get the major world powers off their back properly, and then rebuild and arm up their nation for at least two decades.

 

Iran could do significant damage to Israel in the future if it keeps up its otherwise pathetic national resources on getting nukes, however Israel would still survive since it has second strike deterrence. I'm more worried about the Arab minority in Israel. Israel would not be able to use nukes against them, but I think the IDF can handle them.

 

Short story, Iran's weaknesses make them unable to keep up a conventional war if this elicits a nuclear retaliation. A strategic retaliation would do damage but not enough, unless Iran waits several decades and its regime survives that long.

 

Iran cannot succeed as long as it does not receive intense support from a major world power or manages to call off the sanctions with a fake turn of face.

like i said before an israeli war against iran would not be easy. even if the israeli armed forces did win (which is far from certain) it is almost garunteed that other muslim factions and terrorist groups would launch vengance attacks against israel, who like i said before would be in no state to defend itself, on top of this it would also have to maintain a security force in iran to stop public uprisings etc.
it is clear that israel posses the technological advantage and the skill advantage aswell, but there are far too many iranina soldiers for the IDF to deal with, then they would also face the very significant problem of holding the ground that they had taken, which i am sure the israeli forces are not suited to doing.

however i do agree that it would be unlikely that israel would be doing the attacking, this reflects their military doctrine which almost answers the question for us, they much prefer to fight on their terms on a relitavely small scale, and would rather not risk all out open war.

in terms of military support from other nations on behalf of iran, well we know for a start that russia has had several military dealings with iran in the past in the form of the arms trade, i think they might be able to expect the same backing if it came to a war with israel (it happend in the yom kippur war too).

so all im saying is it could go either way, and i dont think that people should completely rule out Iran as a competent opponent, and that the technological superiority on the behalf of israel should not be seen as the decisive winning factor if it came to a war between the two, as i said it could go either way.

Good post Shirrush.

 

Although, I disagree with one of your statements concerning the U.S. and Iran/Middle East:

 

"The United States,... is too broke and too dispirited to be expected to enter yet another war in the Middle East for the foreseeable future."

 

Yes, the U.S. is dispirited and broke but not to the point of not protecting the vital flow of oil, which you mention in the end, that drives our petrol ravenous economy. The U.S. imports 65% of its oil. More than half of the 65% of the oil we import (55% to be more exact) comes from OPEC countries. Of the 65% of the oil we import, 22%-23% of that 65% is from the Persian Gulf. A disruption to 23% of our oil imports plus the expanding repercussions world wide in cost and market prices would wreak havoc on the U.S. transportation sector and thus the economy. Factors that are important to us today such as unemployment and debt would skyrocket through the stratosphere. So instead of just being dispirited and broke in a recession, if the U.S. did nothing we would be desperate and bankrupt in a major, major depression.

 

If history is any indicator of the U.S. and its pattern of action in the Middle East, the betting man that respects the odds would place his chips on the U.S. getting militarily involved... again.