attack, fire rockets from mess hezbollah, the strait of hormuz. i actually think what the iranians have been doing is messaging to the united states and the world here are the different ways in which we can respond and so we have to recognize that this could be very complicated asymmetric war essentially but it can escalate really fast into a real and deadly and costly war against an adversary in iran that is much more sophisticated, much more ready for this than iraq or afghanistan were and look at how those conflicts turned out. the iranians have been preparing for this contingency with a conflict for the united states for a very long time, and i don t think you can assume that they re going to take a military strike inside of iran is something they re not going to respond to at some point. tessa, the price of oil, ben
especially considering the widespread support iran has within the region. cnn s nic robertson takes a closer look. reporter: the last time the u.s. went to war in the mideast, iraq, 2003, this is what it looked like. shock and awe. the dictator felled in weeks, followed by years of terrorist attack attacks and insurgency. the war in iran wouldn t be the same. it risks spreading to the whole region, and fast. here s why. iran will fight an asymmetric war to target the u.s. and its allies far from iran. shia militias in iraq could focus on israeli forces. hezbollah and shia militias in syria could target u.s. forces
region and fast. here s why. iran will fight an asymmetric war, use its network of regional proxies to target the u.s. and its allies far from iran. shea militia in iraq could target u.s. forces. hezbollah and lebanon could fire missiles. hezbollah and shea militias in syria could target u.s. forces there. hu houthi rebels in yemen could target saudi forces, and even in afghanistan iran has loyal fighters who could attack u.s. troops there. the u.s. would suddenly be threatened on many fronts far from iran. iran would also use its conventional forces currently close to 1 million personnel to target u.s. allies and bases in
the region. its navy would likely shutdown vital shipping routes in the strait of hormuz cutting the world from one fifth of its energy supplies. and fire missiles, not to mention attack u.s. military bases in qatar, saudi, the uae, iraq and even afghanistan. setting off this war would not be fast. iran is not small, nearly 2 1/2 times the size of texas. remember jimmy carter s ill-fated 1980 helicopter mission to rescue the 52 u.s. hostages in tehran. it has mountains and desert, think a combo of iraq and afghanistan. searingly hot in the summer, subzero in the winter. by every conventional metric the u.s. will outgun iran.
a very complicated asymmetric war essentially but it can escalate really fast into a real and deadly and costly war against an adversary in iran that is much more sophisticated, much more ready for this than iraq or afghanistan were and look at how those conflicts turned out. the iranians have been preparing for this contingency with a conflict for the united states for a very long time, and i don t think you can assume that they re going to take a military strike inside of iran is something they re not going to respond to at some point. tessa, the price of oil, ben was talking about the strait of hormuz, a remarkable proportion of the world s oil, much of that comes around the area of the persian gulf goes through the strait of hore hughes and the price is up 5.5% in one day on these increased tensions but a lot of people have been saying in the last few weeks the president doesn t want war with iran, bolton does, and pompeo does. these have been guys who have been hawkish about ira