But on the positive side none of the bad guys are in a secure position. Burlesconi (sic) is out of the international game, Blair is only going to survive for as long as it takes the Brownites to realise that he's lying about a transfer of power, and Bush is facing a crumbling base at home. In France Clearstream looks set to damage or even bring down the government.

So - it's not a done deal. If Bush starts lobbbing the nukes gas prices will go to $5 or $7/gallon in the US - where it's affordable at all - and that would immediately wipe out any jingoistic warrr on terrraaa advantage that Bush may be planning for the elections.

Because he's an idiot he'll likely still go ahead. But there will be as much political fall-out, even in the US, as there will be physical fall-out in Iran. Neither is going to be pretty.

And all Russia and China have to do is sit back and watch the show. They won't need to get actively involved because the whole house of cards is so unstable already it's not going to take much to bring it down.

After that - who knows? I don't think the Iranians particularly want to stop shipping oil, so if there were some return to stability after Bush and the rest have gone, things might even return to an expensive but not wholly unworkable state.

Long term there would still be serious problems, but I'd be surprised if this leads directly to a major nuclear confrontation between the bigger players. Maybe I'm being too optimistic, but it doesn't seem like that would be necessary for anyone. (Although since Bush secretly has a death wish he might want it to happen anyway.)