I was going to write a long article about this, but in my research I found someone else already had done so.
Kudos my friend.
As you can see Iran is very close to the center of a large struggle over whether oil goes east or west, and its sitting on the worlds largest reserves of natural gas and a substantial quantity of Oil as well.
Any discussion about Iran must be made in the context of Oil and gas because that is what any possible conflict with Iran will be about.

The web of intrigue (and oil pipelines) from http://coyoteprime-runningcauseicantfly.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/the-wars-in-middle-east-and-north.html