Applescript and “starts with” operator

Question

Is there a way to check (in applescript) if a list (or block of html text) starts with any number of values.

Example (checking for a single value)

if {foobar starts with "<p>"} then
    -- do something awesome here
end if

except i would like to pass multiple values to check <p> or <h1> or <em>.

Thanks in advance.