Fortunately the Pentagon was not ready for a war against Iran when it decided to shoot down an unmanned drone instead of a Poseidon P-8 surveillance plane carrying 38 Navy personnel. [photo] Both aircraft were violating Iranian airspace on June 20, 2019. But according to highly placed Iranian military commanders, the P-8, which was over Iran's airspace in the Persian Gulf and appeared on radar intercept screens, was ignored in favor of destroying the unmanned drone. According to a Middle East military correspondent for Al Rai media, the Revolutionary Guard command received confirmation through a third country that the US was not ready to go to war with Iran. The US accuses Iran of attacking two oil tankers in the Straits of Hormuz with mines.
The Global Hawk drone was detected leaving the Emirates, flying over the Gulf, and violated Iranian airspace on its return to base. When contacted for identification information, the drone shut down its transponder, navigation lights and GPS indicating a military aircraft posing a possible threat. The order was given to shoot down the aircraft using a modified SAM-6 missile system. [photo] This surface-to-air missile was modified in 2013 with upgraded sensors and improved electronics after the Russians stopped supporting the system. Its capability to overcome drone countermeasures surprised US officials. Iran's air defense system is probably better than the one encountered in Serbia during Operation Allied Freedom. Iran's command assured media that its dispersed air defense system is on constant high alert all over the country. It considers the west's economic blockade to be a form of warfare, and said "Iran shall not stand idly by if signatory countries will not find a way out for Iran to regain its trade, energy and commercial position in the international market...The world should expect more surprises in the coming days because Iranians refuse to starve." The drone was shot down in the same area that the USS Vincennes destroyed an Iranian airliner (Flt 655) killing 290 people on 3 July 1988.
The pseudo-gangster occupying the White House responded to the drone intercept with more economic sanctions targeting Iranian leadership on Monday. He has pulled the US out of the international agreement reached with Iran to eventually terminate the country's nuclear weapons program. So the erratic madness of Don Veto Trumpillini is coming ever closer to immersing the United States in another episode of the unending global 'war on terror'. It is absolutely no surprise that the regime is using the Authorization to Use Force Resolution passed in the aftermath of 9/11 to authorize attacks on Iran without a declaration of war by Congress. A war with Iran would be more costly than the one against Iraq, and would almost certainly involve other nearby nations in the conflict. Wither Congress' constitutional power to declare war? Apparently dead letter, along with the power of impeachment.