re: #2 lawhawk

That’s not the most important part of that photo.

It’s that it was apparently not taken by satellite, but by other technical means.

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That would seem to indicate a low-observable UAV. And it’s a very blunt way of telling everyone we have eyes on what the Iranians are doing (or failed to do).

Thing is that there’s zero reason to say anything about the incident at all. It’s awful statecraft, and even worse opsec around our intel gathering means.

It gives the Iranians the ability to figure out what was going on and prep for it going forward. It tips off the Iranians that they have US aircraft entering their airspace unobserved.

it also lets them know if they mess with any more oil tankers, we can easily drop something nasty on them with a negligible margin of error.