A Nastygram From Uncle Sam?

      US Navy Tomahawk cruise missile
Is the US about to attack Iran with an armada of unmanned aircraft as widely reported over the weekend?  Probably not, unless by unmanned aircraft you mean cruise missiles.

Apparently, if reports are to be believed, the Dutch of all people had a mole deep in Iran's missile program.  A respected Dutch journalist reported that the mole had been sabotaging the Iranian program, but had fled the country in advance of a US strike by said unmanned aircraft.  This kind of thing gives me a headache.  How to tease apart the web of deceit layered with truths in such a tale?  For truth there surely is, to make the whole thing plausible.  But can it be discerned?

The Iranian "agent" part is probably true to the extent that somebody in their missile program could have defected for money or favour or fear.  The Iranians know if they are missing someone or not.  But if anyone would have been able to place an agent it would have been the Israelis, not the Dutch.  Also, the notion of a highly placed saboteur is Hollywood, not real life.  I'm just not buying it.

As for the imminent attack by an armada of US unmanned aerial vehicles, I'm not buying that one either unless the vehicles are cruise missiles.  Cruise missiles are the perfect superpower intimidation tool you see.  Unmanned, reliable, precise, very long range.  Unless nuclear tipped, they can't do much damage, but there's no PR hit if one gets shot down.  Bill Clinton loved them. 

George Bush was famously contemptuous of Clinton's remote controlled, symbolic approach to "sending signals".  But Clinton avoided exactly the kind of trouble that Bush would invite with a normal set of airstrikes against Iranian targets.  Planes shot down, aircrews paraded on TV, show trials.  So a remote controlled symbolic strike may be Bush's only option.

Cruise missiles would be the remote-control method because currently deployed US drones have neither the speed nor the lifting power necessary for long-range strikes of this kind.  Here's a photo of the current state of the art MQ-9 Predator.  It can only carry 1,500 lbs of munitions and would be a sitting duck for Iranian SAMs and aircraft.

Its possible that the Air Force has a secret program similar to the Boeing X-45 pictured below.  The F-114 Stealth fighter was operational for years before it was declassified.  But given the very public squabbling over the direction of US Fighter programs in the last year, and the non-secret X-45 and its competitors, there is little possibility of a major secret delivery platform.

Even so, I'm not betting on a strike with cruise missiles or anything else.  Iran has passed the point of no return on its nuclear program.  At the end of the day, and that end is drawing close for George Bush, there isn't much the US can do about it.  Besides, if the world can live with a nuclear Pakistan, a nuclear Iran is tolerable.  The Israelis may not like it, but like the US, there's nothing practical they can do about it short of attacking Iran with their own nuclear weapons.  Its just not worth it.