Fars News – July 7, 2019

Iran announced on Sunday that it has rejected Washington’s demand for a limited and unimportant attack against the country to save face after the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) downed a US drone over its territorial waters.

“When after downing the enemy’s hostile drone, the enemy announced through diplomatic mediators that it intended to carry out a limited operations in an unimportant and deserted region to save face and asked us to avoid giving them a response, the Islamic Republic’s answer was that we consider any operations as the start of war and will respond to it,” Head of Iran’s Civil Defense Organization Brigadier General Gholam Reza Jalali said in Tehran on Sunday.

He added that Iran responded that in case of any operations, “it will design the battle ground and if you start it, it is us who will say when it ends”.

His remarks came after the IRGC Aerospace Force shot down an American spy drone over the territorial waters of Iran near the Strait of Hormuz at dawn on June 20.

The United States had confirmed that one of its reconnaissance planes was shot down by Iranian air defenses, but denied that it intruded into Tehran’s airspace at the time.

Also, US President Donald Trump said the US air force was “cocked and loaded” to attack three Iranian targets on Friday morning, but he called off the strike with 10 minutes to spare after being told that the airstrike might kill as many as 150 people.

Trump said in a series of tweets that he decided that the death toll was not a proportionate response to the Iranian shooting down of a US spy drone off the Iranian coast.

After Trump’s remarks, Commander of the IRGC Aerospace Force Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh said that his forces could have shot down a US P8 aircraft with 35 on board which was violating Iran’s airspace, but decided to shoot down the drone to only send a message to Washington.

Continues …

Comment – July 7, 2019

Can Iranian claims that the U.S. asked it not to intervene if it carried out limited retaliatory strikes following the downing of its drone be believed?

On balance we think that this is entirely plausible. Certainly far more plausible than Trump’s claims that he called-off air strikes, minutes before they went ahead, when he realised the extent of possible casualties.

After all, pangs of conscience haven’t stopped the U.S. carrying-out air strikes on numerous other civilian targets across the world. From Kosovo to Iraq, Libya and Syria the U.S. has routinely launched air strikes, which have resulted in literally hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties.

So yes, the Iranian claims seem entirely plausible and they explain why the U.S. didn’t launch any retaliatory strikes following the downing of the Global Hawk.

This also speaks volumes about Trump’s presidency. Rather like a used car salesman he is all about public image and presentation rather than actual substance.