"I do disagree with you on one point though, I'm not sure a regional multi-player war in the middle east would be such a bad thing for us, as long as we're not stuck in the middle of it. After half a century of blaming us for all their problems, the Arab world is going to be begging the Great Satan to come back in and sort out the mess."

Oli. Oil. Oil. Unlike previous wars and skimishes, the current players have the military capacity to damage or destroy the oil production capabilities of their rivals. You have also seen more consolodation of Oli Infrastructure (such as refineries, etc) in the region, making for more 'ripe' critical targets. Saudia Arabia and Iran have all the military capabilities needed to end oil trade in the persian gulf and/or choke the Strait of Hormuz (and cripple pipelines and oilfields). While both have appreciable (on paper) air forces, the real issue is Surface-to-surface missiles.

Saudi arabia has in air-forces what it lacks in missile capabilities. They have an appreciable number of not-old modernized F-15s and Tornados. While I'm not sure how Tornados would fare in Air-to-Sea engagements, the F-15s would have no problem whatsoever.

Iran has an appreciably advanced domestic missile program, capable of sinking tonnage in the gulf and the straight at will, and capable of domestically producing all the ammo they need to do it with. I don't have numbers on accuracy, but I'm pretty sure Iran would have no problem targeting vital oil production sites throughout the area.

Saudi Arabia has M1A1 tanks, a full compliment of Apache and Eurocopter ground attack helicopters, and several hundreds of billions in banks around the world with which to fight a protracted war, plus an american-style and american trained military. Iran has a very practical, well tested solid military that has more 'home grown' components and systems, making them ready to 'go the distance'.

There are other players in the area or nearby with appreciable political, economic and military capabilities (Israel, Syria, Turkey, Russia, Pakistan, India, Former Societ States, etc). Most of the borders in the gulf are artifical, and do not represent historically respected boundaries, not do they respect ethnic boundaries. There is lots of money to be made (on paper), and power to gain. There is significant isolation and insulation in many countries between the citizen and the government. There are many tangled alliances. There are some of the oldest and bloodiest ethnic axes to grind sitting out openly on the table.

We are also incredibly vulnerable right now. Just a few points:

We are isolated from our traditional allies.
We are militarily over-extended
Should any of the major economic players (China and Japan) become un-confident in our ability to be the 'top player' economically (IE, if we have to beg for oil arund the world), they could dump the trillions of dollars they own and crash our economy over-night.

Nothing is for sure, but there could be a massive regional war, and if there is, don't expect oil out of the persian gulf area for a long, long time. And don't expect America to exit the crisis in the Socioeconomic and Political cat-bird-seat it has held since the end of the cold war, and possibly not even the status it had in the post WWII era.

Even if the Middle-east came back begging for our help, I'm not sure we could even do it after the worlds oil production drops 50%

Yeti