It is clear that Iran is sending the U.S. a stern message. And that message is we can hurt you asymmetrically as much as you hurt us.
Over the weekend Iran’s leadership made it clear there was no mistake in their actions last week. They purposefully shot down one of our most advanced drones to send the U.S. a very clear warning.
‘Our capabilities far exceed your tolerance for withstanding them.’
The more we learn about this incident the more the initial story concocted by the U.S. looks specious. Drone in international airspace? Most likely not.
Trump said someone made a mistake? No, completely deliberate.
The drone that was shot down, an RQ-4A Global Hawk, was the cream of our surveillance drones. It was flying in tandem with an anti-submarine Poseidon P-8 spy plane, which, according to Elijah Magnier was carrying far more than its normal crew of 9.
Try 38.
That was not reported at first either in the initial flush for war. Iran then revealed just how loose with the truth the U.S. turned out to be and that forced a complete rethink of the situation.
There was no mistake involved. No IRGC officer panicked. Iran deliberately targeted the Global Hawk after it failed to respond to hails to leave Iranian airspace and turned off its GPS, lights and digital systems.
It was acting as a hostile and Iran treated it as such. After sparing the Poseidon P-8 and its crew and passengers Iran shot down the drone.
This is likely why Trump was so angry at the presser the other day with Justin Trudeau when asked about the incident. He made what he thought was a gesture of good faith to Iran and, to him, Iran spit in his eye.
In the end, this was just a drone and one that was 1) somewhere it shouldn’t have been and 2) acting in a very suspicious manner, if the Iranian side of the story is to be believed.
And given the potential costs for Iran if they were wrong, the onus of proof, in my mind, lies with the U.S., which it will not provide. That’s a clear signal that we don’t have the evidence to back up our story.,
Sanctions are acts of war. Embargoes are immoral. Just because you can’t tie deaths to it directly doesn’t mean the effects of them aren’t real.
In the end, it looks like Iran’s message was sent and delivered. Trump found out that no amount of external direct pressure will get the Iranian government to fold.
That for all the might of the U.S. military and financial empire, its weaknesses are deep enough that even a relatively weak military and economy like Iran’s can stop it all dead cold because of basic things like geography, logistics and simple human resolve.
No comments:
Post a Comment