FUTURE WAR WITH IRAN

Future War With Iran
The U.S. immediate concern (expressed concern, anyway!) with Iran is over the nuclear enrichment program that Iran is restarting. The fear is that Iran might use the enriched uranium to develop nuclear weapons. They would still be no threat to the U.S. with its 10 to 20 thousand nuclear weapons or Israel with its hundreds of nuclear weapons, but, the expressed concern is that Iran might turn a bomb over to terrorists.
The above is the publicly-stated U.S. problems with Iran. To me, it looks like the nonexistent WMDs of Iraq all over again. Iran has very large deposits of oil and incredibly large natural gas reserves, and with peak oil just around the corner, their energy resources would virtually insulate a conquering country from the ill effects of peak oil. If hard-line right wing Republicans are able, in the near future, to regain control in the U.S., they may be tempted to make a move on Iran.
Iran won't be an easy U.S. target though!
When Iran fought Iraq back in the eighties, the Iranian military was not in good shape. The Ayatollah Khomeini had taken over Iran and purged the military, slaughtering anyone he thought might be a threat to his regime. Practically the entire officer corps was wiped out. This included the Iran's well-trained air force pilots. (Iran's air force was one of the best in the world and had been trained and equipped by the U.S.) So the air force had practically ceased to exist. It is on its way back but slowly.
Against Iraq, the Iranians resorted to often letting religious leaders lead the military. The results were crude human wave attacks wherein tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of Iranian youths were slaughtered. Still, even with all their problems, the Iranians held their own against an Iraqi military that was large but equally incompetent. The U.S. and most Arab countries poured many billions of dollars and aid into Iraq to bolster them.
Iran is unlikely to fight so stupidly again.
Iran's conventional forces are no match for the U.S. in a war, and, possibly, not Israel, but they are improving their conventional forces as time goes by. They have a significant rocket and missile force that they are enlarging and this would pose a threat to Israel in the highly unlikely event that Israel would attack Iran. The rocket and missile force could also pose a threat to the U.S. naval ships in the Persian Gulf, and, more seriously, in the event of a future war, could enable the Iranians to shut down oil shipments from the Persian Gulf - at least for a short time. This could create a Persian Gulf oil disaster. The resulting world oil shortage would put a tremendous amount of pressure on the U.S.
The relatively strong Iranian economy (very largely based on oil exports) is also a problem for either the U.S. or Israel. Iran has ample funds to continue improving their military and, several years from now, an attack on them will be even more dangerous than at present. The Iranians have not rushed pell mell into buying foreign weapons although they have purchased a substantial amount. Instead, they have been more intent on building up a strong weapons production industry within Iran. This defense industry infrastructure was not present during their war with Iraq and they suffered because of that lack and they are trying to remedy that situation.
Iran also may hope to become a major exporter of weapons to third world countries and and hopes to compete with the U.S., France and others in this area. Their weapons modernization effort has moved somewhat slowly, but steadily, as they build their defense plants. Fortunately for them, the ongoing Iraq insurgency war has provided them with some lead time as the U.S. is presently heavily engaged there and really can't afford to tackle Iran immediately.
Geography is less favorable for a U.S. invasion of Iran than it was for the Iraq invasion. The capital city, Tehran, is located far inland. Unlike the Iraqi campaign where Baghdad lay fairly close to the border, a U.S. invasion force would not be in Tehran in two weeks and probably not for two or three months. Such a long campaign would entail many more casualties than the U.S. suffered in the Iraqi campaign.
It should also be noted that Iran has closely watched the next-door war in Iraq and has, no doubt, planned accordingly for if their turn comes. They will not go down easily in a future war with the U.S.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Of course, the elected president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has not helped matters with the U.S. and Israel by publicly stating that Israel should be wiped off the face of the earth. He also repeatedly insults the U.S. Is he asking for war or what?
Ahmadinejad is an educated leader (civil engineer) and, with Iran's massive natural resources and relatively large population, could easily lead Iran into the upper ranks of the developed nations of the earth. But he can't do that by adopting the concepts of the extreme Islamic movements. Hopefully, he is just placating these extremist groups while he gets the country up and running. And then again, maybe I am just giving him the benefit of the doubt which he may not deserve