The Iranian oil industry could collapse in 8 years

Iran's oil industry could completely collapse by 2015, according to Roger Stern, an economic geographer at Johns Hopkins University. Stern writes in the latest Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (not available online) that Iran's failure to reinvest in its oil infrastructure is resulting in a 10 to 12 percent annual decline in oil revenue. Surveying their oil debacle, Stern believes Iran's desire for nuclear technology for power generation is genuine, and that the U.S. should just "hold its breath" until Tehran's position softens. 

What they are doing to themselves is much worse than anything we could do," he said.

The one thing that would unite the country right now is to bomb them," Stern said. "Here is one problem that might solve itself."