Obama, Ahmadinejad, and the toy lost on the playground

[Kuciwalker]

QFT

Obama was probably too scared to call a strike. "Bold" enough to launch a raid into Pakistan, not bold enough to drop a bomb in the middle of Nowhere, Iran?

I think everyone criticizing this is an idiot.

[Kuciwalker]

Observably, Obama has been aggressive about conducting airstrikes in Pakistan, Yemen, etc. without too much concern for the wishes of the local government. AND he has far better information and advice than anyone here - including re: the actual value of the downed plane for reverse engineering. So the rational assumption is that there was a good reason not to try to blow it up.

[MRT144]

Obama's Iran policy has always been incoherent. I want to know why the thing isn't designed to self destruct.

We should hire Mossad to take it out or something ... they are actually capable of ****ing with Iran it seems, unlike our limpdicked president.

will you ever stop trolling.

[regexcellent]

Observably, Obama has been aggressive about conducting airstrikes in Pakistan, Yemen, etc. without too much concern for the wishes of the local government. AND he has far better information and advice than anyone here - including re: the actual value of the downed plane for reverse engineering. So the rational assumption is that there was a good reason not to try to blow it up.

That doesn't put him above criticism. There is information we don't know, like how close Iranian troops were to the site and so on, whether the Iranians would be likely to escalate, that may have impeded a strike. That said, it is totally fair game to criticize his asking for it back. That was just stupid, especially with the lack of any kind of "or else" behind it.

[The Mad Monk]

Observably, Obama has been aggressive about conducting airstrikes in Pakistan, Yemen, etc. without too much concern for the wishes of the local government. AND he has far better information and advice than anyone here - including re: the actual value of the downed plane for reverse engineering. So the rational assumption is that there was a good reason not to try to blow it up.

Apparently, it wasn't the "middle of Nowhere, Iran". It was an Iranian air force base.

They hacked it, and flew it there.

[The Mad Monk]

Exclusive: Iran hijacked US drone, says Iranian engineer
In an exclusive interview, an engineer working to unlock the secrets of the captured RQ-170 Sentinel says they exploited a known vulnerability and tricked the US drone into landing in Iran.

By Scott Peterson, Staff writer, Payam Faramarzi*, Correspondent / December 15, 2011

This photo released on Thursday, Dec. 8, by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, claims to show US RQ-170 Sentinel drone which Tehran says its forces downed last week, as the chief of the aerospace division of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, right, listens to an unidentified colonel, in an undisclosed location within Iran.

Sepahnews/AP
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Iran guided the CIA's "lost" stealth drone to an intact landing inside hostile territory by exploiting a navigational weakness long-known to the US military, according to an Iranian engineer now working on the captured drone's systems inside Iran.

Iranian electronic warfare specialists were able to cut off communications links of the American bat-wing RQ-170 Sentinel, says the engineer, who works for one of many Iranian military and civilian teams currently trying to unravel the drone’s stealth and intelligence secrets, and who could not be named for his safety.

Using knowledge gleaned from previous downed American drones and a technique proudly claimed by Iranian commanders in September, the Iranian specialists then reconfigured the drone's GPS coordinates to make it land in Iran at what the drone thought was its actual home base in Afghanistan.

"The GPS navigation is the weakest point," the Iranian engineer told the Monitor, giving the most detailed description yet published of Iran's "electronic ambush" of the highly classified US drone. "By putting noise [jamming] on the communications, you force the bird into autopilot. This is where the bird loses its brain."

The “spoofing” technique that the Iranians used – which took into account precise landing altitudes, as well as latitudinal and longitudinal data – made the drone “land on its own where we wanted it to, without having to crack the remote-control signals and communications” from the US control center, says the engineer.

The revelations about Iran's apparent electronic prowess come as the US, Israel, and some European nations appear to be engaged in an ever-widening covert war with Iran, which has seen assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists, explosions at Iran's missile and industrial facilities, and the Stuxnet computer virus that set back Iran’s nuclear program.

Now this engineer’s account of how Iran took over one of America’s most sophisticated drones suggests Tehran has found a way to hit back. The techniques were developed from reverse-engineering several less sophisticated American drones captured or shot down in recent years, the engineer says, and by taking advantage of weak, easily manipulated GPS signals, which calculate location and speed from multiple satellites.

Western military experts and a number of published papers on GPS spoofing indicate that the scenario described by the Iranian engineer is plausible.

"Even modern combat-grade GPS [is] very susceptible” to manipulation, says former US Navy electronic warfare specialist Robert Densmore, adding that it is “certainly possible” to recalibrate the GPS on a drone so that it flies on a different course. “I wouldn't say it's easy, but the technology is there.”

In 2009, Iran-backed Shiite militants in Iraq were found to have downloaded live, unencrypted video streams from American Predator drones with inexpensive, off-the-shelf software. But Iran’s apparent ability now to actually take control of a drone is far more significant.

Iran asserted its ability to do this in September, as pressure mounted over its nuclear program.

Gen. Moharam Gholizadeh, the deputy for electronic warfare at the air defense headquarters of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), described to Fars News how Iran could alter the path of a GPS-guided missile – a tactic more easily applied to a slower-moving drone.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2011/1215/Exclusive-Iran-hijacked-US-drone-says-Iranian-engineer

The fact that everybody has said this is possible makes it very likely that this has actually happened here.

Does this change anything?

Besides taking drones and cruise missles down a few notches.

[PLATO]

Interesting theory. This would make them guilty of highjacking then wouldn't it?

Hmmm...or would it? I guess it depends in what airspace the vehicle was in when it was highjacked?

[The Mad Monk]

I'm not sure I would call it a theory. The Iranians are claiming that this is what they did, using a method that has been noted as a potential weakness, and the drone appears to be completely undamaged. It's hard to refute.

[kentonio]

Plus lets not forget this is a nation that is almost certainly developing nuclear weapons and delivery systems. They're hardly primitive.

[Al B. Sure!]

Yeah that drone is in too good condition. The Iranians apparently did 'hack' it. That also jives with the US story when it broke that the drone 'malfunctioned'.

[Hauldren Collider]

Actually, I heard it went into a flat spin and that's how it landed softly :/

[Aeson]

... then late at night the Mossad agent hiding inside opens up the front grill of the paper mache stealth drone, steals all the uranium, climbs back in flies away ...

[BeBMan]

Yeah, it's a Trojan Horse!

[MOBIUS]

at this thread!

I'm looking forward to the day Iran finally gets nukes!

[Zevico]

Asking for it back is just protocol

Please refer me to this protocol.

it seems stupid and idiotic considering you were violating their airspace at the time

Indeed. Suppose the existence of some protocol applying to this case. Now suppose it was followed in this instance. Now ask yourself: why follow a protocol if there is no point?

Protocols in international diplomacy serve a purpose: to ensure that diplomatic transactions are resolved amicably. There is no amicable resolution to this issue. The Americans want this spy plane back. The Iranians want to keep it. The Americans don't want it back bad enough to fight for it.

In fact, the effect of this request is to relay the American's unwillingness to do anything at all to recover this spy plane. If a formal request has been relayed then the Iranians can hardly expect the commandos to come knocking at the door any time soon. Iranian anxieties have now been allayed.

An additional effect of this request is to display America as weak. Iranian papers are reporting this as an incident of "begging" for the plane back. And in a way it is: the Americans know there's no hope of getting this plane back. But they're still asking. Maybe the Iranians will change their mind? Maybe? Just maybe? Or not. Maybe "next time" they'll be more reasonable.


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Think about this for a moment from the perspective of a nation in the Middle East allied with the United States. Say, Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia's a good example because it's been urging the US to "cut off the head of the snake" for the last few years. "Cutting off the head of the snake" means destroying Iranian command-and-control capability. Going after their leadership, not just their nuclear sites. What does this incident (among many others) tell the Saudis? That they're on their own. Saudi foreign policy is premised on the view that the Iranian regime must be overthrown if possible. The United States, meanwhile, makes "formal diplomatic requests." It's still in the hope-and-change era--"we hope the Iranians might change, if we're nice enough." The anti-Iranian bloc is now headed by Saudi Arabia. Not the United States, whose President chokes at the possibility of boycotts against those who deal with the Iranian regime, opposed the introduction of US sanctions to that effect, and had to compromise by ensuring that it was "optional." One wonders if that option will ever be recognised. Not the United States, whose President has never called for the downfall of the Iranian regime.

A number of countries stand in a similar position: for example, Jordan, Israel, and a small Gulf state by the name of Bahrain. Obama was going to ditch Bahrain, but the thought of a pro-Iranian satellite, or frankly any revolution, in a place which also had a port in which the US Fleet harboured itself sent the Department of Defence into a tailspin. The Defence Department wasn't quite as "pro-democracy" as Obama, who soon changed his mind.

Egypt used to be part of the pro-American axis. But thanks to the Egyptian revolution which the United States supported, the Muslim Brotherhood may soon be in charge. The Sunni MB hates the Shia Iranians about as much as they hate everyone else on the planet who isn't a "Brother"--perhaps more--but it may be willing to ally with them against the greater threat of the United States. And sectarian differences notwithstanding, the Sunni MB has expressed a preference for the Iranian governmental system and a great deal of admiration for the current Iranian President. This means tyranny, bloodshed, and more anti-Americanism from an MB controlled Egypt, which supported attacks against American soldiers in Iraq. Of course, this simply means that they're ripe for "engagement" and will judged by their "actions" not their "name" by the Obama administration, whose naivete knows no bounds.

One thing is for sure--Egypt is now just a platform for smuggling weapons into Gaza, it is now a platform for attacks into Israel, not to mention a base for Hamas and other terrorist groups planning to attack Israel via Gaza. This is not because the MB is in charge. Even though it's won elections it won't be in charge for a while yet. It has to draft a Constitution first. In the meantime the army is in charge. The army is simply no longer politically able to enforce the law in Egypt. Enforcing the law in Egypt would mean, among other things, attacking Egyptian-based anti-Israeli groups. Groups that, just a few months back, launched an attack onto Israeli territory; or attacked an Egyptian police station. Those groups are operating freely now because arresting or attacking their members is political suicide given the Egyptian public's hatred for the existence of Israel. The irony is that the Egyptian army and regime formented this very hatred with their own state-run propaganda, media, and educational services as part of the raison d'etre of the regime. And now that narrative, of Muslim against satanic Jew, of Egyptian against satanic Jew, and of Arab against satanic Jew, has partly contributed to the downfall of that regime. It reads like the fall of Gaza to Hamas from the "moderates" at Fatah all over again.

What can we expect now?

(1) Under Obama's leadership, a nuclear-armed Iran is a probability that will eventuate unimpeded. It is difficult for me to say whether there are reasonable alternatives, in terms of foreign policy, to the current Administration, as I do not actively follow the GOP race.
(2) If Iran does go nuclear, its power and influence in the region may rise. American allies may weaken. This has consequences reaching far and wide. From the Middle East to Latin America, Iran has its fingers in many pies. And it is working to damage American interests. From attacks on American soil to arms smuggling and drug dealing: you name it, the Iranians have either tried it or done it successfully. Now, and particulary in the Middle East, they're going to be doing it much better than before. Getting nukes will--to borrow an American term--"energise" the Islamist narrative, attract more followers (or simply people who accept the basic Islamist logic without actively becoming members of the movement) and the consequent power of Islamist movements throughout.

In my view, the consequences of a strike on the Iranian leadership and their nuclear facilities would pale in comparison. What more can the Iranians do in the event of such a strike but struggle to survive it?