McGoH - Don't know where the fantasy land quote or comment came from - certainly not one of mine.

Way up the thread I asked two questions, to be answered taking into consideration four considerations, that I believe exist. The first two, NicoleC and I have been hammering on about, the other two seem to have been ignored.

Iraq, in full production accounts for one-seventeenth of world demand - shuting down Iraqi production does not affect things that much. If, however, the US were to take unilateral action and attack Iraq it has to operate in the Arabian Gulf. That would effectively close nearly all production from that region - that comes to a damn sight more than one-seventeenth of world demand. The effect that this would have on the economies of certain countries would be catastrophic given the current world economic situation. Now then Kevin are you seriously telling me that through the UN those countries would just sit back and let that happen - Hmmmmmmmmm?

Assess the risk in UN member states supplying ships to blockade the Straits of Hormuz - what exactly is the risk? They aren't going to steam up and down firing at any American warship that appears over the horizon - all they have to do is be there, a physical presence that the US cannot ignore. Purely by manoeuvre they could deny access, unless of course the American Commander-in-Chief (President) orders that his ships open fire to force their way through - Personally I don't think he would do that, particularly if NATO and Russian ships form part of that blockade - think of the consequences.

NicoleC - "Logistics" said that D-Day was impossible. That is not correct, plus you cannot compare the two operations. Hitler's operation "Sealion" (Invasion of Britain) was considered impracticable by the German Joint Staff in 1940. That plan depended on the Germans capturing, as a minimum requirement, a secondary port intact. Initially, the Allied invasion planners thought along the same lines for "Overlord". They carried out a large scale raid to test the concept - Dieppe. The lessons learned, showed that such a port could not be captured so they decided that they had to take a port with them - "Mulberry". While Northern France was still in German hands the threat of mines caused them to devise means by which fuel supplies could be guaranteed - their solution was PLUTO (Pipe Line Under The Ocean)laid during operation "Neptune". The Allies had a secure base from which to launch their assault on Fortress Europe - logistically it was probably the largest undertaking ever mounted by man - but, even as early as 1940 - it was never considered impossible.