Iran Downs Yet Another US Drone

Pretty soon, Iran is going to have a whole squadron of these things -

The Fars news agency quoted navy chief Gen. Ali Fadavi as saying that the Iranian forces caught the "intruding" drone, which had apparently taken off from a U.S. aircraft carrier. Fadavi said the unmanned Scan Eagle aircraft was now in Iran's possession.

"The U.S. drone, which was conducting a reconnaissance flight and gathering data over the Persian Gulf in the past few days, was captured by the Guard's navy air defense unit as soon as it entered Iranian airspace," Fadavi said. "Such drones usually take off from large warships."

Al-Alam, the state TV's Arabic-language channel, showed two Guard commanders examining what appeared to be an intact Scan Eagle drone. It was not immediately clear if that was the same drone Iran claimed to have captured.

Lest anyone be tempted to think that Iran is automatically lying, let's review the record.

• Nov 11, 2012 - Two Iranian jets fired on a US drone close to Iranian airspace.
• Jan 8, 2012 - RQ-4 Global Hawk UAV, took off from the USS Stennis aircraft carrier for for a Broad Aerial Maritime Surveillance Mission (BAMS) over the coasts of Iran.
• Dec 4, 2011 - Failed US UAV drone (RQ-170 Sentinel) overflight, which which is shot down over 140 miles into Iranian territory.   (Iran also claims to have shot down 2 more drones in January)
• 2009 - The CIA dispatched a stealth surveillance drone into the skies over Iran. The RQ-170 Sentinel penetrated more than 600 miles inside the country, captured images of Iran’s secret nuclear facility at Qom and then flew home.

Upon further review, it becomes pretty clear that the US is pretty interested in repeatedly violating Iranian airspace with their drones.  That much should be evident without the US pretending that somehow IT is adhering to some sort of international moral code while the dirty, dirty Iranians are simply terr'ists deserving a place in the global glass factory.