Let's Bomb Iran!

Or maybe not... if you believe The Oxford Research Group. (And why shouldn't you? They pretty much called it exactly right on the question of what would happen if the United States invaded Iraq.)

Would it be too much to ask of Americans that they consider the likely consequences before launching a military operation against Iran?

I especially liked this part from the "US Context" section of their paper:

Although major difficulties have arisen with US military operations in Iraq, there is still a dominant feeling in neo-conservative circles in Washington that Iran is, and always has been, a much greater threat to US regional and global interests than Iraq was. A common view before the start of the Iraq War in March 2003 was that “if we get Iraq right, we won’t have to worry about Iran”. In other words, if military force proved easily able to terminate the Saddam Hussein regime and replace it with a stable client government supported by permanent US bases, then Iran would bow to US policy in the region, causing little trouble. The fact that Iraq was not “got right” and that there is considerable potential for Iranian influence in Iraq is one consequence of the decision to terminate the Saddam Hussein regime.

That trick never works.