Anyone think this war is really going to go down? Or will this just subside and be yesterday's news in a matter of weeks?

We're all (mostly) Monday morning quarterbacks here...only the folks in the Chrystal Palace know anything for certain, and I imagine right about now...they're consulting the Magic Eight-Ball too, albeit at a higher level. My take is this...we've been at a constant state of "war" for nearly twenty years now; more if you consider the whole thing to be one long story beginning in 1991, through Somalia, the USS Cole, and half a hundred other "incidents" leading up to 9/11. Our enemy isn't one nation, its leadership, or its people...but an ideology that is literally more than a thousand years old. I doubt we'll ever see another "WWII", with clearly (if brutally) defined objectives, centers of gravity, etc. No more "epic" battles measured in miles/yards of re-captured territory, "body counts", or who signs what papers at the conference table. This fight is already global; there are no "theaters of combat"...only varying degrees of risk defined by our enemy's strength in a given area (including our home turf), and their ability to enact their will there. There is the potential for a broader, more "conventional" conflict with other traditional enemies...China, North Korea, and Russia chief among them... but in many ways, they too have a common foe. There's no strong link between those who hate us because we reject their theology...and those who hate us because we're a competing empire. Where we lie to ourselves is in believing that we are NOT an empire...every bit as integral to global stability...as we are vulnerable to being stretched too thin to do the job properly. We're not fighting anywhere to give the Third World "democracy"...most of it doesn't have any interest in that anyway. What we ARE doing is making it very hard for all of the disjointed threads around Western Civilization to form into a noose. If we look back even further in history, that's a role we've inherited...and we could learn a lot from our predecessors' failures. To my mind, our greatest weakness isn't on the field of battle...but in the many fractures that divide us not only as a nation, but as a civilization. Jerusalem was lost largely because Christian kings only stopped fighting in Palestine long enough to fight one another.

Full on conflict will likely not happen. But I suspect this will only escalate the situation in the form of cyber attacks, stepping up influence in Iraq, putting more pressure on Israel, further cooperation with Russia, etc.

Doesn't really matter on our end. If it happens, it happens. If we are told to go, we go.