Israel Matzav

Iranian drone a fraud?

Earlier this week, I wrote about the Ambassador of Death, a new Iranian drone that has too short a range to reach Israel, but could constitute a danger to the Gulf countries. Time Magazine claims that the drone is a fraud.

Yet the gap between rhetoric and rockets looms large, experts suggest. "More like the 'ambassador of minor damage to unintended target,'" says Richard Aboulafia, a veteran analyst with the Teal Group, an aerospace-consulting firm just outside Washington, D.C. Iran lacks the ability to guide its drone over long distances, nor does it have the sensors — both on the aircraft and at the ground stations controlling it — to make it any kind of a threat. Adds Kenneth Katzman, an Iranian-military expert with the Congressional Research Service: "It is likely to have virtually no actual military value."

The gold-colored, 13-ft. (4 m) drone appears to be powered by a single turbojet engine with a 250-lb. (110 kg) bomb slung underneath its belly. It purportedly can carry a bomb weighing up to 450 lb. (200 kg) and has a range of about 600 miles (960 km), which is still short of reaching Israel. The design has left U.S. experts scratching their heads. "Is Estes the prime contractor?" asked one blogger on an aviation website, referring to the Colorado-based model-rocket maker loved by teenage boys since 1958.

But Iran isn't concerned about reality, just making the right impression, especially among its home audience. "Iran has no defense against an Israeli or U.S. first strike," John McCreary, a veteran U.S. intelligence analyst, said in his NightWatch blog Tuesday. "The leaders want to camouflage that fact by showing off weapons, without admitting that they have little value in protecting Iranians." Tehran also knows that the idea of an unmanned aircraft packs an insidious kind of punch. With no pilot at risk, the visceral reaction is that they can go anywhere to spy or destroy. But that's due to the success the Pentagon has had in recent years with those Predators and Reapers over Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan. That success is not guaranteed simply because a country possesses drones.

Now, if only the US would undertake that first strike so that Israel won't have to.

Read the whole thing.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:11 AM