America, as we have known it, would cease to exist

* conason:

"Faced with an Iranian invasion, the British might well be forced to flee. Our strained forces would have to move rapidly southward in large numbers to repel the Iranians -- using equipment that is in poor shape after three years of constant use -- or risk being cut off from their supplies for months. Airlifts are unlikely to suffice, and they would arrive under constant threat from shoulder-fired missiles. As one savvy observer put it, referring to the French debacle in Indochina: "Think of Dien Bien Phu in the desert."

If an attack on Iran provoked full-scale rebellion by the Iraqi Shiites, then an even worse outcome is conceivable. Our forces, along with the tens of thousands of contractors and bureaucrats employed by the occupation, might ultimately be forced to retreat from an Iraq in flames. That would mean horrible casualties and utter humiliation. Think of Saigon in the Green Zone."

* digby: "First, they declare that the taboo against wars of agression, formed in the blood of more than 70 million dead people in the 20th century's two world wars, is out. Not even a second glance at that taboo. They simply repackage it as "pre-emptive" war, changing the previous definition of (troops gathering on the border) to somebody some day might want to attack us so we must attack them first."

* "Meanwhile, here’s what a “pre-emptive” tactical nuclear attack against a purely hypothetical threat would do: According to the National Academy of Sciences, it would incinerate over a million Iranian men, women and children, and spread cancer-causing fallout across the region. And on the day it happened, America, as we have known it, would cease to exist." (link)