…while Saudi Arabia inks a major arms deal with the US.
Iran is in negotiations with Russia to buy 250 state-of-the-art fighter jets, an Israeli newspaper reported, in a pointed response to a new American bid to sell billions of dollars’ worth of weapons to potential Iranian adversaries in the Middle East.
The article in Navy Times goes on to point out something which is fairly well known, and which is that Iran’s Air Force consists mainly of ’70s vintage US aircraft we sold to the Shah. This includes F-4 Phantom II’s and Tomcats.
Not much for our Carrier Strike Groups to have to worry about.
If this purchase goes through, however, that will change.
The Su-30’s listed performance capabilities are comparable to or better than the three primary American fighters deployed to Iraq: the Navy’s carrier-based F/A-18 Hornet and the Air Force’s F-15 Eagle and F-16 Fighting Falcon.
That’s a lot of very high performance aircraft to be sitting in Iran while we are engaged in supporting operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. One must realize that this won’t happen overnight, though, and it will be sometime before even one Flanker shows up in Iran.
Another point. For all the overt support in the way of arms sales our friends the Russians are providing to Iran, you have to wonder what else they are doing.
In the shadows.
New arms race?
Or just a resurgence of one we thought was over…
*Update (John)* Enter the usefulness of the F-22….
A resurgence of the one we thought was over… oh naive Americans that we are.
The reason for For the US sales in the area is to provoke Iran into outspending its’ self. Just as the USSR did. With the Iranian economy on the brink of major upheaval or outright collapse. Spending so such on guns vs butter will further destabilize the country.
The reason for For the US arms sales in the area is to provoke Iran into outspending its’ self.
Just as the USSR did.
With the Iranian economy on the brink of major upheaval or outright collapse. Spending so such on guns vs butter will further destabilize the country.
In all likelihood they won’t be able to pay for it
No need for the F-22. One of our “teen” fighters in the hands of an American pilot WILL defeat a Flanker in the hands of an Iranian one.
It’s the man in the crate, not the crate itself, that counts.
That’s what Richtofen said.
Former Spook has a pretty decent discussion of this issue here: http://formerspook.blogspot.com/2007/07/flanker-deal.html
I remember pretty much the same discussion about 25 years ago about Libya. Libya’s advanced Mirages were going to turn the Med into Tripoli’s lake. Didn’t happen then, not gonna happen now. I’m more concerned with what support their selling. Tankers would allow them to overfly a post-withdrawal Iraq to get at Israel. Good medium or long range air-air missiles are far more worrying.
With regards to the arms race question, I don’t know that I would necessarily call it an arms race, but this is a prime example of why we should quit sending aid to Russia. We already indirectly fund most of their non-petroleum export market. All their sales are to people looking to counter US systems, instead of an aid package all we have to do is get into a tiff with a petro-fascist and BOOM instant cash for Russia.
As far as Ian’s comment about USSR’ing Iran, I hope that’s not the plan because it won’t work out the same. The Soviets were a rational enemy, they looked at the cold war like a chess match: saw the economics had already pigeon-holed them, and realized a military confrontation wasn’t winnable. Like a good chess player they laid down their king and admitted defeat without exchanging all that many pawns. Back Iran’s mullahs into the same corner and they are more likely to kick over the table then step away from it (to mix metaphors). Good chance we’d see a grab for either Iraq or Saudi if an up-gunned Iran found themselves desperate for money.
Closely related: Kasparov has a good piece in Sunday’s OpinionJournal: To understand today’s Russia, read “The Godfather.”
Good thing the Russian “state of the art” is behind the curve. Along with the Iranians.
As has been said, even if the Iranians get a sweet deal with the Russians, they’ll have to spend quite some time getting their fighter pilots up to speed. And against well trained Israeli and American fighter pilots, they’ll be outclassed. The deal’s worth more to Russia, who got to expand their influence over Iran. All the Iranians did was buy themselves expensive exploding coffins.
“Soon after this picture was taken the pilot returned home in shame after being gunned by an F-18F. Fly Navy!