In listening to an interview given by Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, I was surprised to hear him casually say (at 5:10): "Israel flew F-35s to Tehran and made it sort of public. The leadership of Iran know they did, and (the F-35s) made it back to Israel" (ed: rough transcript made from podcast).
In July 2018, a Kuwaiti newspaper reported that Israel had flown a test mission of at least three F-35 jets to Tehran and back from an airbase near Tel Aviv. While never confirmed publicly, a good number of military and political leaders in the region believed and still believe the story. The long-rumored threat the F-35 posed to Iran now seemed like a reality.
Earlier this month, reports in the same Kuwaiti newspaper said that Iran's military leadership panicked enough over the purported stealth mission that it kept news of it from reaching Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. But when Khamenei found out about the mission, he reportedly moved to fire not only Iran's air force chief but also the long-serving and powerful commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps. That's major impact without even firing a shot.
In another recent piece, CNBC noted:
[In] a somewhat cheeky statement ... Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ... barely held back a smile as he said that Israel can reach Iran, but Iran cannot reach Israel. He didn't add the words "undetected by radar," but it was surely implied.
The National Interest's Michael Peck wrote (also last year) about the purported incursion here:
So did the incident really happen? First, if the incident were true, that would mean that operational missions are already being flown by the F-35I Adir ("Mighty"), the Israeli version of the [F-35][.] ... The Israeli Air Force (IAF) has a well-earned reputation for boldness, but there is a difference between being bold and foolhardy[.] ... Besides the technical risks, there is a bigger question: why fly the mission at all? Tensions are high ... the only reason to do it would be to send Iran a message.
The Jerusalem Post also reported last year on the (supposedly) same incursion but said only two planes flew.
Jim Hoft of Gateway Pundit also published quotes from the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jarida last year here.
Joel Pollak, senior editor-at-large at Breitbart News, recently posted about the purported incursion here, but he, too, questioned the veracity of the reports.
Pollak linked to this piece by National Interest writer Dario Leone containing this tidbit:
According to Al Jarida, Iranian intelligence received top secret information that the Israeli fighter planes even managed to photograph Iran's underground bases. Khamenei, who received this information, now suspects a cooperation between Russia and Israel, and that the Russians gave Israel the secret code of the Russian radar in Iran.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is reported to have fired Brigadier General Farzad Ismaili, the commander of Iran's air defense system, over the incursion.
If the incident did, if fact, occur, then some of the critical implications need to be examined. It means that Iran knows that Israel can put the country's lights out at any time without notice or warning. It also means that Israel can put an atomic bomb on any target at any time without notice.
It certainly means that Iran must be certain that it can immediately take out every Israeli F-35 (including any that might be in Azerbaijan) in any attack by it or its proxies in Lebanon.
It means Washington may or may not have any advance knowledge should Israel need to respond to an attack or threat of immanent attack...
The list of implications, critical or otherwise, goes on, and I leave it to readers to think of them. However, if the story is true then the situation is very different from what conventional wisdom now has it. That situation is, indeed, fraught, and the Twelvers may not care about Iran's destruction, but Iran's position is more parlous than it may seem
I don't know if the story is true, and nothing I have been able to uncover confirms its truth, but Hoenlein and Batchelor believe it to be true so I'd be willing to push all my chips into the pot in the belief that it is true.
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