Six on Persian Gulf: U.S. Navy MQ-4C Triton high-altitude drone shot down by Iranian surface-to-air missile; INTELLIGENCE EXP
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The official said the drone was a U.S. Navy MQ-4C Triton. No further details were immediately available, including the time of the shoot-down.
Iran's Revolutionary Guard said earlier Thursday that it shot down a U.S. "spy" drone in the southern province of Hormozgan.
A senior Iranian security official said on Wednesday Iran would "strongly respond" to any violation of its airspace.
The commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard said that the shooting down of the U.S. drone has sent "a clear message" to America.
Gen. Hossein Salami said also says that Iran does "not have any intention for war with any country, but we are ready for war."
>> Read more: Iran may soon try to provoke Israel to gain the upper hand in its conflict with the U.S. | Analysis ■ Israeli support for Trump clash with Iran willfully ignores danger of devastating Hezbollah missile attack | Opinion
BREAKING: U.S. Navy MQ-4C Triton high-altitude drone shot down by Iranian surface-to-air missile this evening over Strait of Hormuz in international airspace: U.S. official
Iran shoots down U.S. military drone over Strait of HormuzINTELLIGENCE EXPERTS QUESTION IRAN VIDEO: 'U.S. TRACK RECORD ON GINNING UP EVIDENCE FOR WAR IS NOT GOOD'Intelligence Experts Question Iran Video: 'U.S. Track Record on Ginning up Evidence for War is Not Good'
Intelligence Experts Question Iran Video: 'U.S. Track Record on Ginning ...
The State Department believes the video is evidence that Iran was behind tanker explosions, but some experts arg...
"But independent intelligence experts say the video provides no proof whatsoever of Iran's alleged responsibility for the attacks, a charge Iran denies. That's not to say Iran did not carry out the attacks, these experts hasten to add, noting that as the Trump administration tightens economic sanctions on the Islamic Republic, Tehran has ample reason to carry out such hard-to-trace terrorism against tankers, if only to raise the price of the dwindling amount of oil Iran is selling these days. But amid the rising tensions in the Middle East, these experts say, there are numerous other players in the region with compelling motivations to carry out such attacks."One has to keep asking the question, well, if it isn't Iran, who the hell is it?" Anthony Cordesman, a strategic analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Newsweek. "You come up with the possibility that ISIS carried out the attack as trigger to turn two enemies — the United States and Iran — against each other. Or you're watching Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates create an incident that they can then use to increase the pressure on Iran."
Ayham Kamel, the head of Middle East analysis for the Eurasia Group, an international risk analysis consultancy, said recent attacks by Iranian-aligned Houthi rebels on Saudi oil installations are now threatening the kingdom's core security concerns.
"The Saudis are alarmed," Kamel told a conference call Friday. "Their response is going to be to try to pressure the U.S. into action."
Others have pointed to the possibility that Thursday's attacks, as well as the attacks on four tankers in the same waters a month ago, were so-called "false-flag" operations carried out by Israel, another arch foe of Iran, to make Iran appear responsible. And some observers have even suggested the attacks may have been directed by hawkish members of the Trump administration as a pretext to launch military operations against Iran."The U.S. track record on ginning up evidence for war is not good," William Church, a former military investigator for the United Nations Security Council. "It lied in the run-up to the Vietnam war [by inventing a North Vietnamese attack on a U.S. Navy ship in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964], and it lied about WMD [weapons of mass destruction] before the Iraq war. So when these tanker attacks happen, we have to ask why and what's the motivation in addition to examining the evidence."
Church pointed to the Trump administration's withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal last May, its reimposition of economic sanctions on Tehran and Trump's recent denial of sanctions waivers to eight of Iran's biggest oil customers under the president's policy of "maximum pressure," aimed at forcing to negotiate a new nuclear deal under terms more favorable to the United States. Church also noted that Trump's hawkish national security adviser, John Bolton, has openly called for regime change in Iran.
With regard to the video, Church said much more needs to be known before any conclusions about Iranian responsibility can be drawn. "The video means nothing," he told Newsweek. "We need to know how it was taken, when was it taken, what was the total sequence. Then you'd have to talk to the people in the video to get their view of what happened. I would check to see if the video was doctored. You would need to do everything that a trained investigator would do."
Church, who also served for many years as a U.S. intelligence officer in the Middle East and East Africa, acknowledges that the Iranians have the Gashti-class patrol boats. But he notes that Iranian Navy, not the Revolutionary Guards, have the closest naval base to the site of the attacks, suggesting a possible discrepancy in the U.S. Central Command's description of the Iranian craft's affiliation. He also points out that the video does not make it clear which of the two stricken tankers is depicted.
In addition, Church said it's not clear whether limpet mines caused the explosions in either tanker. Limpet mines are usually attached by divers to the hulls of ships at the water line. There have been some reports that crew members aboard one of the tankers saw a flying object, possibly a drone, heading toward the ship before the explosion occurred, raising the possibility that a drone delivered the explosives.
"Drones and limpet mines are a dime-a-dozen out there in the Middle East," he said. "Everybody has them. So we need to know a lot more that what the video shows us."
Church also says it's not clear why, in the latest attacks, Iran would target tanks belonging to Norway and Japan, two of Iran's best oil customers. "They've been shipping to these countries for decades," he said. "Why would they do that?" Church says an independent investigation of the attacks is needed to determine responsibility."Still Manufacturing Consent: An Interview With Noam Chomsky
AM: It is 30 years since Manufacturing Consent was published. Today, what would you have added or subtracted to the book if you were writing it today? Or do you think the propaganda model still holds very strongly?
I The model is about the same today as it was in the 1980s. I would just use new examples. Take, say, Iran. There is a lot to say about that. There is a lot of concern about the potential threat of Iranian nuclear weapons. A couple of questions arise: Suppose Iran was developing nuclear weapons. Who would be threatened?
Actually, we have an analysis of this, by a US intelligence report to Congress on the nature of the strategic issues of the world. This is before the P5+1 agreement. What they point out is that if Iran is developing nuclear weapons, which we do not know, the reason would be as part of their deterrent strategy. As they point out, Iran has very low military expenditure, even by the standards of the region, and, of course, by the standards of the West. Their strategic doctrine is defensive; they want to defend themselves from any attack. And if they are developing nuclear weapons, it would be part of their deterrent strategy.
Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA; Persian: برنامه جامع اقدام مشترک, romanized: barnāmeye jāme'e eq...
Who is that a threat to? It is very simple: It is a threat to the rogue states that want to rampage in the region without any deterrent. There are two of them. They are called the United States and Israel. It is a threat to them if anyone has a deterrent. That is the potential “threat” of Iran.
Is there a way of dealing with that potential threat? There is one very simple way: move to establish a nuclear weapons–free zone in the area. Is there a barrier to that? Not from Iran. Iran has been calling for that for years. Not the Arab states, they have been pressing for it almost forever. In fact, they initiated the effort. Not the rest of the world, which is strongly in favor of it.
There is one barrier. It is called the United States. The US, over a long period of time, has refused to allow this to proceed, most recently Obama in 2015. The US and Britain have a special commitment to this. Here is what ought to be the headlines on Iran: The United States and Britain have a particular commitment to a nuclear weapons–free zone in the region. When the US and Britain invaded Iraq, they had to concoct some sort of pretext. What they did was refer to a 1991 Security Council resolution that called on Saddam Hussein to stop his production of weapons of mass destruction. That very same Security Council resolution calls on “all parties,” meaning the US and Britain, to move towards establishing a nuclear weapons–free zone in the region.
So the US and Britain have a special commitment to move towards the one measure that could end any possible threat that anyone believes Iran poses. Why aren’t they doing it? There is a simple reason. They have to prevent any inspection or control of Israel’s nuclear facilities. That is the story. Do you see it discussed? No. And I would give many other examples in a new edition"
