Sounds Familiar...

This sounds a lot like what they were saying about Iraq three years ago. From MSNBC News Services:

Meanwhile, the United States and its European allies said Wednesday that Iran’s intransigence over its nuclear program has left the world no choice but to ask for the Security Council to take action against the Islamic regime.

(snip)

On Tuesday, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice both warned of dire consequences if Iran continued its nuclear fuel enrichment, while Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld claimed that Iranian Revolutionary Guard elements had infiltrated Iraq to cause trouble.

At what point do you think Cheney, Rice, and Rumsfeld will start telling us that we have to act before the smoking gun is a mushroom cloud?

Iran, for its part, isn't backing down. In fact, they've issued a challenge:

Iran said on Wednesday the United States could feel “harm and pain” if the U.N. Security Council took up the issue of Tehran’s nuclear research.

“The United States may have the power to cause harm and pain but it is also susceptible to harm and pain. So if the United States wishes to choose that path, let the ball roll,” it said in a statement obtained by Reuters on the sidelines of a U.N. nuclear watchdog board meeting in Vienna.

(snip)

Tehran also said Wednesday it would have to review its oil export policy if world pressure mounted over its disputed atomic work.

Asked whether Iran would use an “oil weapon” as the world’s fourth largest crude oil exporter, Javad Vaeedi, deputy secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, told Reuters: “We will not (do so now), but if the situation changes, we will have to review our oil policies.”

Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, had said on Sunday that Tehran was not keen to use oil as a weapon in its escalating row with the West “but if conditions change it could affect our decision.”

He did not specify what he meant by a change in conditions.

Iran is the fourth biggest oil exporter in the world and the second largest in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. There is broad international concern that isolating Iran could drive up already high oil prices.

Which makes me worry - suppose Iran does cut its oil production, leading to an incredible increase in gasoline prices for Americans (because, like the Prez said, we're addicted to oil). Will Bush, Cheney, Rice, and Rumsfeld consider that an act of war, thus necessitating an American invasion of Iraq?

One which, by the way, we couldn't hope to win - especially with so many of our troops currently mired in Iraq. BushCo would need a draft to create an army large enough - and that dog won't hunt.