There's a very clear and concise article in Foreign Policy (magazine) by Olli Heinonen (senior fellow, Harvard). He's one of the foremost civilian experts on nuke technology and proliferation, having scoured the World for decades as an inspector/ deputy director general for the IAEA (with remarkable success). He portrays the technological paths toward escalation and disarmament for Iran as fairly obvious at this point. The timeframe - especially for weapons grade U, though not necessarily for actual devices (how much info/ materials have they gotten from AQ Khan and the Norks?) - for potential developments is such that likely parties to any potential conflict with Iran must keep pretty much constant tabs on what's happening there and keep contingency plans up to date and specific.
Hence it also becomes more likely that some intelligence assets, like the RQ-170, may be lost due to higher acceptable risk. Compared to the killing off Iranian scientists, drone surveillance is a very benign way of going about this partly clandestine business (I don't know whether there's any plausible connection between, say, the Fordow enrichment facility, possible drone bases, and the alleged crash site). A side note on the assassinations: Israel is well known for engaging in all tactics they deem necessary for their safety. Whether degrading Iranian capabilities and capacity in this manner (in addition to Stuxnet'n'stuff) really is in their interest is another matter. A less obvious candidate for engaging in (or contracting) such operations is perhaps Saudi Arabia, there's no love lost between the elites of those two countries either: Consider the craziness late last year with the fledging assassination plot of Ambassador Adel al-Jubeir in the US by some Iranians at least loosely affiliated with the Quds force. Could this be interpreted as attempted "symmetrical retaliation" (for the killings of scientists that have been going on from 2007)?
Anyway, the article is - "in my humble opinion" - well worth the read and highly pertinent to the objectives of any drone flights over Iran.
Hence it also becomes more likely that some intelligence assets, like the RQ-170, may be lost due to higher acceptable risk. Compared to the killing off Iranian scientists, drone surveillance is a very benign way of going about this partly clandestine business (I don't know whether there's any plausible connection between, say, the Fordow enrichment facility, possible drone bases, and the alleged crash site). A side note on the assassinations: Israel is well known for engaging in all tactics they deem necessary for their safety. Whether degrading Iranian capabilities and capacity in this manner (in addition to Stuxnet'n'stuff) really is in their interest is another matter. A less obvious candidate for engaging in (or contracting) such operations is perhaps Saudi Arabia, there's no love lost between the elites of those two countries either: Consider the craziness late last year with the fledging assassination plot of Ambassador Adel al-Jubeir in the US by some Iranians at least loosely affiliated with the Quds force. Could this be interpreted as attempted "symmetrical retaliation" (for the killings of scientists that have been going on from 2007)?
Anyway, the article is - "in my humble opinion" - well worth the read and highly pertinent to the objectives of any drone flights over Iran.
Not pink...
