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Iranian encirclement 12, December 2011

Posted by thegulfblog.com in American ME Relations, Iran.
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Each star is a US base.

An excellent map from Juan Cole.

On Iran’s Stealth RQ 170 Capture 9, December 2011

Posted by thegulfblog.com in Random.
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So Iran did actually manage to get a hold of one of America’s drones this time? I would imagine that there are some highly concerned people in Washington and some people buying air tickets and grabbing bags full of cash in Moscow and Beijing.

Iran insists that it remotely jammed the UAV and landed it on purpose. But Iran lies quite a lot about these things. Their technology is, obviously enough , enormously inferior to America’s, but America’s hubris knows no bounds: hence the debacle in Iraq with the feeds from UAVs. Certainly, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that Iran hacked the feed and took control of it (their asymmetric warfare capabilities need to be noted as significant, in particular) but it is more likely that either 1) a technical error from the US side caused the issue or 2) Iran managed to scramble the signal somehow. Either which way, these UAVs are designed to land themselves somewhere flat so certainly it didn’t need the Iranians to guide it down.

Certainly, this is a blow for America. How bad a problem remains to be seen in a few years when grainy footage emerges from a Chinese military base of a wing shaped UAV taking off.

Yet such a UAV has such eventualities taken into account; there is some degree of expendability built in.This is not to try to minimize the loss; as Michael Dunn notes, now for one thing Iran will be able to learn exactly what the RQ 170 actually does (i.e. only photography, sigint, radar suppression etc or some combination thereof).

There are, of course, two other possibilities entirely. 1) That Iran has made this out of leftover polystyrene and sticky back plastic or that 2) this is some enormously elaborate sting by America. Neither are that likely, but neither can be ruled out. Let the speculation begin.

British Embassy in Bahrain attacked? 5, December 2011

Posted by thegulfblog.com in Bahrain.
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A small bomb went off near the British Embassy in Bahrain’s capital Manama. The relatively small device went off underneath a bus parked 50 meters away from the Embassy.

Some points to note:

  • This incident comes at a time of tension between the UK and Iran (re: embassy bootings out) and during the Shia festival of Ashura.
  • Nevertheless, without wishing to be fatuous, no one can say with 100% accuracy that the British Embassy was the target. 50m is no small distance. Of course, it is likely, but if you’re that close to the Embassy why not lob it over the wall or leave it next to the wall/gate – anything other that sticking it under a bus?
  • I shudder to think of the hay that the Bahraini authorities will make with this; adding to their already notable molehill of ‘evidence’ of Iranian nefariousness in Bahrain.
  • If the Iranians wanted to attack the British Embassy in Bahrain (or elsewhere) I would suggest that they could – so to speak – do a damn sight better job than a home-made explosive device left under a bus vaguely near a British Embassy.
  • If the Bahraini authorities really want to push this line about this being proof of Iranian influence in Bahrain, then I suggest that this augers for just how little influence they have.
  • If this incident was done by someone with links to or sympathies with Iran (which is, of course, perfectly possible) then this person either: 1) Is incredibly dim (see point 3) in that now the Bahraini authorities will have yet more excuse in their eyes to crack-down further should they so choose. 2) Is rather Machiavellian (see point 3) in that they are trying to draw on more of a repressive response from the Bahraini authorities. Either which way, the Bahraini police ought to pursue a measured response.