Isn't it also the case that most of their reserve currency is denominated in dollars? So the contest would be who could get out of dollars (and into the appreciating currency) the fastest, a contest that will end up with more losers than winners and thus which they are unlikely to seriously even play with. That could be hearsay or it could be so obvious I didn't need to mention it. (I guess it could also be both but I'm not sure how)
In any case, I have thought about it a great deal and I still don't know why they would do (or are doing) Iran. It seems like a losing battle any way you slice it. Yoshi's explanation of it being about Amhadinejad's economic policies sounds stimulating, but since no one outside the the country seems to be talking about them, is he really that much of a threat in that regard? Chavez or even Morales or even the new guys in Ecuador seem to be a much more likely target under that rubric. I suppose a welfare state Iran makes Iraq's free market utopia look a little stark, but it really doesn't take much to make Iraq look stark. There could be some domestic (U.S.) political power they'd gain from another adventure, but with the widespread disdain for the current war that seems like a pretty big gamble. Even if Israel is pushing the big buttons, we'd be in the middle of that mess.
Outside of their hoping it will bring about the Armageddon, my only conclusion is that they're just sociopathic idiots--and if the former, it is definitely both. Maybe I'm just a dope but I am having a hard time figuring out why it is really in anyone's interest to do this--or even what it is possible for them to do. I probably missed the post where someone explained this. And maybe I am being too rational about this. If one takes Chalmer's Johnson's (and Eugene Jarecki and many others) view, we have a permanent war economy so maybe it doesn't matter why we go to war or what effects the war has just so long as we go to war. One would think that two of them at once is enough, but then that's just rational thinking again (or irrational: if you have a permanent war economy and you have to line up the next adventure, it makes perfect sense.)
-s