Here's some trouble brewing in Iran. They have unveiled a version of our Predator drone-
The 4-meter-long drone aircraft can carry up to four cruise missiles and will have a range of 620 miles (1,000 kilometers), according to a state TV report — not far enough to reach archenemy Israel.
That assumes that you launch it from Iran. There is nothing to say that they couldn't put in on a freighter and launch it from, say, the Red Sea; you could easily fit that in a standard 20-foot shipping container; eight of them could fit in a 40-footer if you could put them in two high and two wide and two long. Then, the 620 mile range would be just fine to drop whatever payload it wanted on Israel.
If they don't want to launch it from sea, they could take that container and send it to Lebanon and let their friends in Hezbollah send it south. Unless the Israelis know what ship it's coming in on, you could land it anywhere and have it ready to rock in hours if not minutes after unloading.
The folks at Get Religion have an interesting catch on the eschatological nature of the drone via the Telegraph
The words “Ya Mahdi” were written on the side of the missile, referring to Imam Mahdi, one of the 12 imams of Shiite Islam, who disappeared as a boy and whom the faithful believe will return one day to bring redemption to mankind.
The Mahdi has a messianic flavor to him in Shiite lore, similar to the Revelation imagery of Jesus kicking butt and taking names. So, when combined with the Iranian nuclear plant going on-line, we have Ahmadinejad getting his Armageddon on.
Trash talk or a low-grade World War III? One can only hope the former, since Ahmadinejad is known to wax eloquent and not back it up. However, he's working up an arsenal that can create some havoc in the near future if managed well.
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