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U.S. Sizing Up Iran?

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There's an another evil dictatorship in the area but that one is armed and protected by the UK and US.

Campaigners have won a legal challenge over the UK government's decision to allow arms sales to Saudi Arabia, which is engaged in the war in Yemen.

Campaign Against Arms Trade argued the decision to continue to license military equipment for export to the Gulf state was unlawful.

It said there was a clear risk the arms might be used in a serious violation of international humanitarian law.

Judges said licences should be reviewed but would not be immediately suspended.

International Trade Secretary Liam Fox said the government would not grant any new licences for export to Saudi Arabia and its coalition partners while it considers the implications of the judgment.

A spokeswoman for Prime Minister Theresa May said the government was "disappointed" and would be seeking permission to appeal against the judgment.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-48704596
 
Interesting analysis from Spiked.

There has been a grim predictability to the escalating conflict between the US and Iran. It is as if this is what US president Donald Trumpand his team wanted all along: a casus belli, a reason to get stuck into the Islamic Republic, a chance to mount a presidency-defining intervention.

Because now, following Iran’s threat to increase the production of enriched, and therefore potentially weapons-grade, uranium, and allegations that the Revolutionary Guards attacked oil tankers in the Gulf, the US is acting like it has that reason, that chance, to attack Iran. So 1,000 extra US troops have been despatched to the Middle East, to supplement last month’s deployment of an aircraft carrier and other military assets. And, with that, the drum beat to a war no one can win becomes ever louder.

The US is keen to present its military build-up as a response to Iran. That, at least, is the ploy. But, lest there be any doubt, the US is not reacting to events – it is driving them.

This is clear from the fact that Trump himself, alongside Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state, and John Bolton, the US national security adviser, have always been absolutely convinced of the need to face down Iran’s theocratic regime. Not because of evidence of regional perfidy, or intelligence suggesting Iranian plots afoot. But because of an animus towards Iran that reaches deep into the psyche of the US foreign-policy making establishment.

Listen to Bolton in 2007 talking of his hope that President George W Bush was going to launch a military attack on Iran. Or Bolton, again, on the eve of his appointment as national security adviser, calling for the ‘overthrow of the mullahs’ regime in Tehran’. Or Pompeo in a 2016 op-ed demanding that Congress ‘act to change Iranian behaviour, and, ultimately, the Iranian regime’. The objective has always been, as it was with the Iraq War, regime change.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/04/12/liberal-authoritarianism-salvatore-babones/
https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/06/20/a-war-no-one-can-win-iran-trump/
 
https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/20/middleeast/iran-drone-claim-hnk-intl/index.html
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Iranian shot down a United States military drone on Thursday, further escalating the already volatile situation playing out between Washington and Tehran in the Middle East.
Iran's Revolutionary Guard said it had shot down an "intruding American spy drone" after it entered into the country's territory Thursday.
A US official confirmed to CNN a drone had been shot down, but said the incident occurred in international airspace over the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world's most vital shipping routes.
 
ramonmercado said:
Iran says the drone violated it's airspace. Interesting though, drones carry missiles, the crew of one of the damaged tankers claimed that they were subjected to missile attacks.
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The Iranian Shahed 129 drone is a strike-capable drone, and it's operated by the IRGC. The anti-tank missiles it was originally configured to carry could conceivably be consistent with the known damage to the stricken ships.

On the other hand ...

It the IRGC had attacked the ships using a medium-altitude strike drone, there'd have been evidence available from airspace monitoring and surveillance records that was much more compelling and irrefutable than the recon photos of the purported IRGC patrol boat.
 
EnolaGaia said:
The Iranian Shahed 129 drone is a strike-capable drone, and it's operated by the IRGC. The anti-tank missiles it was originally configured to carry could conceivably be consistent with the known damage to the stricken ships.

On the other hand ...

It the IRGC had attacked the ships using a medium-altitude strike drone, there'd have been evidence available from airspace monitoring and surveillance records that was much more compelling and irrefutable than the recon photos of the purported IRGC patrol boat.
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I'm suggesting that it may have been a US drone which attacked the ships.
 
ramonmercado said:
I'm suggesting that it may have been a US drone which attacked the ships.
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It definitely wouldn't have been the RQ-4 Global Hawk the IRGC shot down - that drone is not equipped with weapons.

American strike drones are just as detectable as the Iranian ones, so my comment about compelling evidence being readily available applies to them as well. The Iranians would have had tracking data of their own to show the world.
 
EnolaGaia said:
It definitely wouldn't have been the RQ-4 Global Hawk the IRGC shot down - that drone is not equipped with weapons.

American strike drones are just as detectable as the Iranian ones, so my comment about compelling evidence being readily available applies to them as well. The Iranians would have had tracking data of their own to show the world.
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I'm sure the US has other drones in the area

There is no proof that either the US or Iran attacked the ships.
 
ramonmercado said:
Saudi Arabia, Israel, maybe a lesser Gulf State/
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Those countries have certainly been wronged by the Iranian regime, who has given Houti rebels missiles to fire into KSA and who has threatened to destroy Israel. But, understandable animosity towards the current Iranian regime goes way beyond that. I suspect most of the world would like to see the brutal islamic theocracy replaced with a democratic regime and I'm sure that many of the Iranian people would too. Some of the older generation recall the days of the Shah as the golden years. In 1979 Iran took a step back into medieval barbarity.
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
....Some of the older generation recall the days of the Shah as the golden years. In 1979 Iran took a step back into medieval barbarity.
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Some people may see the '53 coup - the toppling of the democratically elected, socially reforming and resolutely secular Mosaddegh and his government and the subsequent installation of the Shah - as the real retreat to barbarity. Arguably one of the most destructive single episodes in the modern history of the region, a hugely cynical act on the part of those in the West who aided it, and with incredibly long reaching consequences which clearly resonate around the region to this day. It's still one of the reasons that even many of those Iranians who despise the current regime are deeply mistrustful of the US and UK and of any intervention therefrom.
 
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Whatever the rights and wrongs are of supporting regime change in Iran, it's hard to criticise the Shah's "White Revolution" which promoted modernism, secularism and vastly improved the standard of living for most Iranians. The 1963 referendum showed massive public support for his policies.
A shame that extreme islamist forces sought to undermine his modernising reforms from the start.
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
Those countries have certainly been wronged by the Iranian regime, who has given Houti rebels missiles to fire into KSA and who has threatened to destroy Israel. But, understandable animosity towards the current Iranian regime goes way beyond that. I suspect most of the world would like to see the brutal islamic theocracy replaced with a democratic regime and I'm sure that many of the Iranian people would too. Some of the older generation recall the days of the Shah as the golden years. In 1979 Iran took a step back into medieval barbarity.
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I want to see the Iranian Theocracy replaced by a democratic government but that has to come from within. Look at my postings on this thread over the years and you will see that I am a supporter of the Iranian opposition.
 
For a drone the US says was in international waters, Iran seems to have a lot of pieces of it.
 
kamalktk said:
Trump approved a military strike against Iran. The planes were in the air. Then he ordered them to stop.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/20/world/middleeast/iran-us-drone.html
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Just watching reports of this on the 18:00 news. Trump was advised that destroying the Iranian military base that launched the SAM would likely kill 150 personnel. He deemed that to be a disproportionate response to downing an unmanned drone and aborted the attack. Which sounds fair enough.
If another US drone monitoring shipping in the Straits of Hormuz is shot down by Iran though, I doubt that Trump will hold back the dogs of war.
 
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blessmycottonsocks said:
If another US drone monitoring shipping in the Straits of Hormuz is shot down by Iran though, I doubt that Trump will hold back the dogs of war.
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The digs of war? My army's better than your army... my nuke button is bigger than yours...
 
A threat of military response can sometimes be as effective as going in all guns blazing.
If the mere threat proves sufficient to dissuade Iran from attacking any more tankers, then that's a positive result.
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
Just watching reports of this on the 18:00 news. Trump was advised that destroying the Iranian military base that launched the SAM would likely kill 150 personnel. He deemed that to be a disproportionate response to downing an unmanned drone and aborted the attack. Which sounds fair enough.
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It really depends:
1: Did no one on his advisory team tell him that proposed strikes would liekly kill 150 people before he ordered them? That would be frighteningly inept advising.
2: They told him, he ordered the strikes anyway, then called them off once they were in the air. That would be frighteningly erratic behavior by him.
 
kamalktk said:
It really depends:

2: They told him, he ordered the strikes anyway, then called them off once they were in the air. That would be frighteningly erratic behavior by him.
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Not really,

It makes him look good. 'I could have killed those people but I didn't'.

Odd that Israel, who are notorious for sneak attacks on countries the are not at war with, and who are in the possession of nuclear weapons they are not supposed to have, do not receive the same opprobrium.

One could ask why.

Mind you, these 'called off' strikes may be complete illusion. A concocted fabrication purely there to knock down.

With Trump, how would you ever be sure ?

Now, THAT is the real problem.

INT21.
 
There's another speculation which seems kind of obvious: Someone - and that 'someone' not necessarily being of the US or Iran (I bet Russia is watching the entire zone with everything they can muster) - worked out that the drone actually was in Iranian airspace, and the explanation offered is the best spin that can be put on it at short notice. (I mean, come on, does anybody really believe that US drones only fly over friendly territory and active warzones? Anyone remember Gary Powers?*)

That said, that really is pure speculation, I'm just kind of surprised that it's not been more widely offered as a potential. And if the reasons given are the true ones, then I think Trump deserves praise for pulling back - and by God, I never thought I'd ever say anything like that.

*I was going to mention the U2 - but I know that'll get Ramon's wild up.
 
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I would have to agree.

But if the drone was in Iranian airspace, and was proved to be so, what would have happened if Trump had allowed retribution for something that wasn't the Iranians fault ?

And the Americans, for all their technical capability, do make mistakes. The Korean airliner shot down in the same area is a good example.

INT21.
 
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