Are you ready for $12 gasoline?

That may be among the least of our worries if this scenario plays out.

The lede from the article in The Times of London: "President George W Bush has told the Israeli government that he may be prepared to approve a future military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities if negotiations with Tehran break down, according to a senior Pentagon official."

The "senior Pentagon official" goes on to say that Bush's "own generals" oppose such an action, but that the administration's green light is mainly dependent upon the Israelis coming up with an acceptable plan of attack. Oh, and naturally, it would also be conditioned on the breakdown of the aforementioned "negotiations with Tehran." (You can be sure that the administration is diligently, constantly, negotiating their little hearts out trying to solve this diplomatically.)

The article then turns to the likely consequences of such a development: "The one thing that all sides agree on is that any strike by either Iran or Israel would trigger a catastrophic round of retaliation that would rock global oil markets, send the price of petrol soaring and wreck the progress of the US military effort in Iraq."

I think "catastrophic" is about right, given that Iran's primary strategy for self defense is geared toward shutting down oil shipments moving through the Straits of Hormuz. (OPEC leaders are on record as stating that any conflict involving Iran would result in "unlimited" increases in the price of crude on world markets, and any price increase of that magnitude would, in addition to its serious microeconomic effects, trigger an immediate global recession.) And given that the Israelis -- not a calm, measured bunch, to be sure -- have 200-300 nuclear warheads and a proven capability to deliver them.

So... whom, you may ask, is responsible for bringing us to this precipice of disaster? Well, I'm glad you asked me that. Because at the linked site you will find helpful commenters, one of which opines:

This dangerous dilema is a direct result of the Democrat Party in the US and anti-war zealotry in Europe. Not the fact they are antiwar, but the fact that they have been so reckless with their condemnation of the War in Iraq .This has emboldened the enemies of freedom and rendered talk useless.

I think I'll just go ahead and let the wisdom of that comment speak for itself (though I do feel compelled to add that the "Democrat Party in the US" certainly has a funny way of showing its "anti-war zealotry" in light of the fact that it has continued to appropriate hundreds of billions of dollars every few months in order to keep Bush's Iraqi Adventure rollicking along and has otherwise done exactly nothing (not one single thing) to deter or thwart it in any way whatsoever.)