Yes, I know. That’s why Iran is pursuing nukes. They would like to go on with what they are doing without fear of being overthrown. “What they are doing” is what much of the world objects to.
I think your vision is somewhat limited. Kim is probably safer from being overthrown, but I seriously doubt if the safety of the Korean peninsula is enhanced by NK nukes. Nor is the ongoing conflict between India and Pakistan made less dangerous because both countries now can kill each other by the millions instead of thousands.
Historically we don’t overthrow governments that have Nukes. I’m not saying nukes make Korea or Pakistan safer, I’m saying nukes make the governments safer. It isn’t lost on them that countries that give up their nukes, or stop trying to get nukes, have their leaders killed at the behest of US foreign policy. Kim just doesn’t want to be killed, nukes help ensure that. The leaders of Iran don’t want to be killed. Whose example should they follow Hussein’s or Kim’s?
Analogies like that are pretty useless IMO. ‘Morally right’, according to whom?
In any kind of a legal system they aren’t legally justified to do that. Whereas in a system without laws you might come back with five friends and beat their ass a lot worse.
The international legal system is partial system of laws. If the US can show the drone was in what’s generally recognized as international air space then Iran is legally in the wrong, or Iran can show the opposite, not unimportant but of fairly limited importance either way. If Iran defines ‘international’ differently than what international agreements say, that’s really not important at all. But anyway what really matters is who has the five friends and whether they are willing to go back to and mess up the original ass beater. That’s a practical question, whether it’s actually in their interest to do that, assuming it’s within their capability to do it, and whether to beat ass proportionally or more.
But are you saying reconnaissance from outside national territory ‘morally’ justifies destroying the recon systems? I’m thinking you’re probably not proposing the US build and use asat systems to shoot down all non-US recon satellites going over the US (international agreements define it as legal for them to look at the US from space, just like it’s legal to look into a country from a/c in international air space).
I didn’t say it was a good idea (or a bad one), I was merely answering the question as to why the US is doing what it’s doing (in a big picture way…what Trump is doing is another issue). Regime change would certainly have a short term negative effect in the region…maybe even a long term one. But the status quo isn’t exactly great either as the region is a powder keg that could explode any time…with or without the US doing anything.
The thing is, you are more sympathetic to Iran’s regional goals because it doesn’t affect you and you don’t really see how it would. You don’t live there, so you don’t care basically. However, Iran’s goals are kind of to control the region as a super state, and assuming they were given a free hand it would affect you at some point. Other powers in the region DO care, however, and would resist, even if the US backed out completely (which might actually happen at some point, as the region is less important to the US today than it was int he past) and any sort of actual shooting war in the region is going to affect that oil stuff that Europe needs a lot more than the US from the region these days. It would also almost certainly have a refugees flooding affect on Europe.
Or was it a US Navy MQ-4C Triton? Both have been mentioned in the news. I know they are basically the same aircraft, but I don’t understand why there would be any confusion on this point, especially since one is Air Force and other is Navy.
I’m surprised that airspace is only 12 nautical miles according to wiki that seems so close, so theoretically a Russian sub or something could just sit off the coast of the U.S. only 12 nautical miles away?
I mean I’m sure we’d still put some force around the sub but that seems like such a small distance.
If I understand correctly, they can come even closer if it’s for innocent passage. Though a foreign military vessel coming within 12 nautical miles of US coast can still be newsworthy.
The Russian subs could, unless it’s a ballistic missile sub, in which case by mutual agreement they don’t encroach within 500 miles of the USA coast and vice versa.
I know the news article I read this morning specifically mentioned a Triton, because I had to google it to find it’s a Navy version of the Global Hawk. I can still find articleslikethese that mention the Triton.
ETA: Never mind, ninja’d/resolved by the post above. Thank you Walken After Midnight.
Seems that if the drone crashed into water that would tend to support the US version. If it crashed on land it would tend to support Iran;s version of events.
So if Iran is right, show us the debris and crash site. If the US is right then show us fishing the drone parts out of the sea.
Why? Iranian airspace extends 12 nautical miles (13.8 miles) around its coast. The Iranian infographic shows that the drone was shot down over water. No-one on either side has suggested the drone was shot down over land.
