Except that the whole point is to make conditions so intolerable for the Iranians that they take some sort of military action -- firing a missile at a ship or mining the Straits of Hormuz. Then the neocons have the causus belli they've been wanting for years, and finally get their PNAC dreams of a full shooting war with Iran. So, no, ultimately this isn't much different from overt military action. We have effectively started a siege of Iran, which means that we have already started the war.
We haven't fired a shot. If Iran is experiencing discomfort they could simply stop developing nuclear weapons. If conditions are intolerable for Iran then they should consider modifying their behavior. You speak of Iran as if they were capable of modern warfare. I think it would be rather difficult to break a naval blockade with "human waves" as they employed against Iraq...unless they equip them with those little inflatable armbands like we buy for our kids. That would be quite a sight, hilarious actually.
Given that the United States has far more experience with fighting wars than the Iranians (the same Iranians you are so deathly afraid of) and given that our technology is a step up from theirs, I don't doubt that the U.S. could "win" a war with Iran in the sense of flattening their cities and forcing their current leadership out of power. But what then? How long do we occupy a country full of people who hate our guts for invading them? It will make Iraq look like a Sunday picnic. The neocons could never even define what "victory" in Iraq means. So what does "victory" in Iran mean? And if we don't occupy their country, but simply bomb it real good, I guarantee that a new American hating leadership will rise up and be more determined that ever to do us harm. As for the methods of attack against our navy, the obvious ones are torpedoes and anti-ship missiles. Iran has both, although how effective they'd be against the U.S. Navy I can't say. Iran's military capabilities have not stood still since the 1980s when they had to use "human wave" attacks against the Iraqis.
Not sure why anyone would occupy Iran. I think the best course is to keep up the economic pressure until the people manage to overthrow the theocracy and abandon their nuclear weapons program. Obama botched a great opportunity to arm the opposition after Ahmedinejad's faux election. Evidently what is good for Libya, Egypt and Syria doesn't apply to Iran.
Finally something we can agree on, the biggest threat in the 21st century will not be a nuclear weapon, it will be a biological weapon, or some other form of attack, as nukes present the clear problem, that the area which has been nuked can not be used for decades after the nuke has gone off. Once again we are a century late and a dollar short, and we are chasing the wrong goddamn demon.
And who do you suppose has the largest stockpile of biologicals. .... like a dog chasing its tail. Meanwhile Timothy McVeigh used an Ammonium Nitrate/Diesel Fuel combo and the 9-11 gang used box cutter knives.
We bombed Hiroshima on 6 Aug and Nagasaki on 9 Aug -- which was also the effective day of the Soviet declaration of war on Japan and the first day of the invasion of Manchuria. So that was a really bad week for them but I'd love to see proof that the bombs had no impact on their decision. Especially since the second one removed doubt that we had more which they thought at first and we anticipated which is why we dropped the second one so soon after (weather issues aside).
I linked to the article re the historian who has brought this new evidence to light, and it references where and how he published. Remember that post?
Hmmm. I didn't need to call Suntrader an asshole here. 99% of the time on ET I'm under good control. Working on making it 100% of the time.