How likely is it that this long-simmering standoff erupts into a full-scale war?

Doug Casey: Iran has been an adversary of the US ever since the overthrow of the Shah in 1979 and the capture of the US Embassy.

It's unlikely to get better anytime soon, not least because the country is ruled by mullahs, Shia clergy. Iran is a theocracy. And that leads us to another problem. So is Israel.

The Quran and the Hadiths constantly assert that non-believers, in general, but Jews, in particular, are the enemy. Those beliefs are part of the fabric of Mohammedanism, and that's not going to change.

Meanwhile, the US often accuses Iran of being a terrorist state, which is untrue. Iran doesn't send teams out around the world to create terror. Their problem is with Israel. Even so, Iran never attacked Israel directly before last year, when it launched a missile barrage.

The main cat's paw of Iran against Israel is the Houthis, who control Northern Yemen. The Iranians and the Houthis are both Shia Muslims. Almost all Islamic terrorism comes from the Sunnis, not the Shias.

As for the Houthis, they're a state within a state. Yemen is just an agglomeration of tribes. It's about the poorest and most dangerous place in the world. There's no point in parsing local politics in a place like that; it's enough to say that the Houthis support the Gazans and hate the Israelis. The Iranians supply them with missiles to launch at Israel, and ships headed to or from Israel on the Red Sea.

There's no reason why the US should be involved in an ancient religious dispute on the other side of the world. But it is, launching expensive air strikes to kill local peasants and blow up their mud huts. It's nothing unusual there. US involvement only makes things worse. The question is: Will the US start a war with Iran?

It's said (we only know what we're told) that the US has transferred six B-2 bombers, among other military assets, to the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. It's a convenient launch point for an attack on Iran.

The US is already actively bombing the primitive Houthis, which amounts to state terrorism. Fun fact: The Houthis have never done anything against the US, nor are they capable of it. The US has gotten into the habit of promiscuously attacking any country it wants, especially small ones that can't strike back. It's quite shameful.