Be nice!
Remember that after shave commercial when the guy slaps hinself, with the lotion, of course, and says, "Thanks, I needed that"? Well, having read this post, I remember it, now.
The military option I favor is the Xenophon one.
A couple of Marine Divisions to go from Basrah east to destroy Iran's coastal facilities and logistics, supported by naval barrage, aviation, submarines, and Aegis cruisers. Air dropped logistics, after achieving total air supremacy, which shouldn't take that long given the US Air power combined with land and naval powers (combined arms).
The key difference is that a missile or bomb strike isn't psychologically damaging enough. It just pisses the Iranians off. They don't get scared, and if they don't get scared, they don't become hesitant. You want them to become hesitant and to panic, rather than going for your throat.
The Marine Division in order to push the psychological effect to the limit, would have to cross Iran to Afghanistan, without going near or into Pakistan. This requires rather massive air support and domination of the Gulf of Persia, which would kind of piss of some people around there.
Most military strategists have to operate on constraints and limitations, political ones. I don't much bother with that. If people want a plan that works, my goal is to come up with something that would work if attempted.
No other nation could do what I have just suggested doing to Iran. No other nation has enough unity and combat experience between air, navy, and land forces. No other nation even has the logistical support to support a force large enough to do the job. It is about time the United States used her strengths, instead of always trying to move around the weak points from enemy attack. Iran is weak conventionally, exploit that before it is too late.
The military blogger council linked to by Jimbo of blackfive was discussing the necessary planning that would have to go into an air strike. Air strikes are not enough. It was mentioned that you must also destroy Iran's naval ability to threaten the Straits. I added my own little addition. A land invasion force. Air, sea, and land power.
It is very important when you are attacking, to maintain initiative, momentum, and psychological shock and surprise. If you give your enemy time to plan or recover, things will go badly for you. So if you want to attack, you must attack with full force. There will be no occupation, because occupation would not serve the military objective. It would be counter-productive. So it is not a political restraint I put in. If an occupation was the best way to dominate and slap Iran around, I would recommend it regardless of the political resistance. But it just isn't, which is good.
Different levels of escalation are also possible. Such as invading Iran, destroy their air force and navy, and then just sit on the coast, in support of US forces from Iraq and from the Gulf. This is a raid and hold strategy, which in psychological terms, is similar to the Iranian current crisis. We hold something they want back, but they can't get it back... a good psychological attack if nothing else.
Bush should use diplomatic and political deception as well to surprise his enemies. He should say that he is annexing the southern part of Iran and giving it to the Kurds.
People think too much in a box, that is why they are stymied. Their box consists of DC politics, casualty sensitivity, and fear of risk taking.
Hey, if you want to win big, you must risk big as well. Playing Iran's game of political attrition only serves their goals and strengths. Change the pace and direction of the game, if you want to win, is my position.
Great comments Ymarsakar. Come back any time. 
I don't know enough about the specific suggestions you offer to comment, but they flow from some strategic truths and principles I know to be true so they make sense. I especially liked these observations of yours:
...if they don't get scared, they don't become hesitant... [US] used her strengths, instead of always trying to move around the weak points from enemy attack... If you give your enemy time to plan or recover, things will go badly for you... People think too much in a box, that is why they are stymied... Change the pace and direction of the game...
This administration has, for whatever reason, allowed itself in a way that Reagan and Thatcher did not, to define its options within a Euro-liberal frame. Most on the left would say that that is ridiculous, but when one looks at the outsize efforts from 2001 on to "bring along" European "allies" (as well as public opinion) rather than doing the right thing, leading and allowing everyone to catch up, the truth of that assertion should be plain. Reagan and Thatcher played by the tough but reality-based 'rules' of war (which are, as you note, essentially psychological) and as a result they were effective. As Thomas Sowell likes to say: Reality isn't optional.
Much of the specifics I picked up by looking at the decade between Gulf War I and OIF, and Afghanistan for that matter.
I don't know much about combat power on paper. Useless anyways. The only thing I've been looking at has been actual campaigns and actual combat behavior. For both conventional and unconventional missions. The Navy might have a problem because their submarine, anti-submarine, and various other blockade duty skills haven't been tested in the furnace of war. But again, the US Navy inherently has an absolute force supremacy advantage over every other navy. That itself should be enough, for there are no occupations and guerrila warfare on the seas. Not with satellite surveillaince, UAV and fighter-recon support, and advanced tech sensor systems. Guerrilas require logistics bases from which to plan their attacks, and from which to return for sleep and aid. There are no logistics bases free from American attack on the waves, nor even under them. There is no where to run, no where to hide. That means an insurpassable combat advantage to the US Navy, even when we factori n the Navy's relative combat inexperience compared to say the US Marine and US Army.
Sun Tzu was never a bigger hammer commander, he never ascribed to the "there is a quality to quantity all on its own" philosophy. I sort of got the hint that you might agree with the broader strategic points of interest, when you mentioned Sun Tzu.
Analytically, Bush because of loyalty and interest in gaining allies and international support, tried to ease Blair's domestic insurgency via agreeing to go to the UN> Bush himself said to Blair that he could leave the coalition because Bush saw Blair's problems at home. Blair said no, he is sticking with the US. That earns credibility and loyalty creds from Bush. Which motivated Bush into going to the UN, along with advice from Powell and Bush's other idiotic advisers.
The Afghanistan and OIF campaigns were stark contrasts, and therefore very useful to someone who wishes to gain insights into modern military strategy and logistics. In the former, you had almost instant surprise and mobilization, with on the ground local forces supported by air power. In the latter, you had a conventional armored strike approach supported by a huge logistics train, which was built up over a political timeline going into the 6+ month range. The former lasted about the same time as the latter, but the continued resistance spoke that Afghanistan had far more of a success in destroying the enemy's logistical bases and psychology than OIF 1. Iraq always had a higher fortification and guerrila warfare value, because of its higher pop, its urban combat locations, as well as Saddam's interesting arms caches and various weapons systems and Soviet style secret police apparatchiks laying around (Fedayeen, secret police, gang lords, tribal warlords). But these are resource and potential advantages, not actual. The analogy which I think
fits, is with the fortified location. It takes time to fortify a location, even if that location is the best out of the best, with huge stockpiles. If you don't have time to fortify it, then it is useless against a determined attack. I cross-referenced the tactical situations from David Weber's books with the Afghanistan campaign, and it correlates. Surprise really is the greatest force multiplier.
In order to use America's strengths to the best advantage, we must convert conventional power into psychological attack power. For that pits our strengths against Iran's weaknesses, while at the same time defending our weak point (psychological warfare) against their strong point (propaganda, psychology, and political maneuvering).
An air strike is conventional, a delaying maneuvering. It has little psychological benefit to the US, with much greater utility to the propaganda masters of Iran. In order to utilize air strikes to inflict psychological damage, via air power alone, one must use demonstration nuclear tactics. While effective, it isn't as effective as the kind of grounds on take that a US division can put out (when combined with SF and civilian affairs people). Also the problem with demonstration nuclear tactics is that they are a one shot deal. If you happen to flash blind 500 people and kill 50, then in order to have a greater effect next time, you must escalate it. So while effective, it is only good for a couple of shots before you start irradiating more than you gain back in shock value.
The US has paid blood for the armed propaganda teams in Iraq. The ability to reconstruct, have good local relations with Arabs, and so forth have been something the US is learning painfully in Iraq right now. If it wasn't for Iraq, then sending US forces to raid or cross Iran at any point, would have horrendous higher risks per capital. The possibilities of mistakes would increase. The possibilities of enemy propaganda utilizing "war atrocities" would increase. The possibility of inadequate intelligence leading to military setbacks for the US would increase as well, without the combination of company level imbeded Military intel agents and the skill at gathering local intelligence through agents and networks learned in Iraq.
A lot of the benefits of Iraq have been the knowledge and experience paid for through blood and treasure. Why go back to something that never really was a threat, which was surgical air strikes when you have an even better land force than the best land force we had in 1991? Combined arms has always been an excellent force multiplier over military history's timeline.
To wrap things up, I got here from Laer's post of the council nominations. Though my favorite place to comment is Bookworm's Room.
In a sense, Western folks are confused because they don't know what they want or what their goals are. Iranians are clear headed compared to the kind of muddied thinking of the West. A good analogy is self-defense.
If the goal is to defend yourself, why are there then boatloads of limitations on what kind of level of "force" you can use to defend yourself? You can't use a knife or beat your attacker beyond a "reasonable means of force". (for some countries like Britain and Australia) That's the kind of muddy headed thinking I'm talking about.
If your goal is defense of something, then you must allocate ALL forces, resources, and ability to that goal. Playing it safe is for businesses and lawyers. Either people are fighting a war or they are drafting legal arguments. And the West's problem is that it seems they are trying to do everything and nothing at the same time. War, sanctions, diplomacy, lawyering. None of these forces work together, none are combined. All are therefore weakened for the lack of Purpose and Will. I've seen a tactical proverb in John Ringo's novels and in OIF 1. Which is basically, whether your actions are good or bad, they should be carried through with 100% competency and momentum. If a plan is set into motion, a goal chosen, then it is useless to start debating whether it was good or bad, if you do your best to try to achieve them then that is that. You can turn defeat to victory via this way. Just as a good strategy can be blundered by poor consecutive actions.
I was reading the wiki article on the Kobayashi Maru, because it seems I could never actually found the real world naval preference. (probably because there was none)
Why would entering the Neutral Zone be a violation of the treaty? Most demilitarized zones are enforced by both sides in the real world, yet the Klingon one seemed to be only enforced by the Klingons. It is kind of funny to call something the Neutral Zone when the Klingons can fire on anyone there.
Great quote from a Hewitt exchange with Mark Steyn late last week (paraphrase): The debate used to be about whether the British Navy was sufficient to defend Britain. Now the debate is about whether it's sufficient to defent itself.
There are those on the left who would have us again take the Jimmy Carter softly-softly, turn-the-other-cheek approach.
Ah, yes, I remember the Carter years.
And the accompanying talk of joining the Communist Party "in order to be on the winning side".
Will we start seeing conversions to Islam "in order to be on the winning side"?
Good point, H.U.G.
I was just thinking the other day:
Nobody under forty has an even quasi-adult sense of what living under the Carter administration was actually like and how sharply different and refreshing Reagan's antidote was.
By the same token, nobody under fifty (and for the record that would include yours truly) has any direct, pocketbook sense of what double-digit inflation, unemployment and capitulation to the enemy really feels like day-to-day. It amazes (and frightens) me that the man has as much influence as he does. If there were any empirical justice in the world (i.e., having to reconcile policy to fact), he would be disgraced.
Will we start seeing conversions to Islam "in order to be on the winning side"?
Europe's already seeing it, I think. A lot more are converting to Islam than the weak and undisciplined version of Christianity that Europe has.
People have trouble remembering the Oral History of Gulf War I. With improved communications and data acquisition abilities, I don't think comprehension was made easier. I just think it was made more accessible to those willing to put in the time, more progress would be made on the hour. But you still have to put in hours to get back something.
I say it is not easier to comprehend things now in the world of the Net and data trafficking, because all this data, media, soundbites, and what not drown out critical information. So data becomes junk and gets in the way of information, because human minds can only process a limited amount of data at any one time.
So it becomes easier to forget the important things in the past decade or so, because all too many unimportant things are going on in this world that people seem to know more about. It's just not Hollywood either, and it isn't just the media showing car chases. It's the whole deal, the whole technological infrastructure and how that affects the acquisition of data by human beings.
There is so much data available to people now, that a lot of the man hours are put into sorting them out (blogs are one evolved method, but search engines were probably one of the originals, with usenet and message boards maybe experimental firsts)
Oh ya, I forgot to include the conclusion, which is that regardless of our tech progress, humans must still work to gain wisdom, comprehension, and knowledge. Nothing has gotten easier, at least not to the point where people can slack off.
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