An Israeli soldiers smiles as she stands next to an Israeli air force unmanned plane in the Tel Nof base, central Israel, Sunday, Feb. 21, 2010. Israel's air force has introduced a fleet of large unmanned planes that it says can fly as far as Iran. Air force officials say the Heron TP drones have a wingspan of 86 feet (26 meters), making them the size of passenger jets. They say the planes can fly 20 consecutive hours, and are primarily used for surveillance and carrying payloads. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
As tensions are rising in the region with the unanticipated IAEA announcement that Iran is constructing a nuclear warhead fitted for missile delivery, Israel sent a message back to Iran today by unveiling a top-secret fleet of unmanned drones. The newly disclosed unmanned fleet, as reported by the Jerusalem Post today, can reach the entirety of Iran and could be the weapon of choice should Israel decide to choose to preempt Iran’s nuclearization with a military strike on Iranian nuclear proliferation related installations:
The Israel Air Force on Sunday introduced a fleet of large unmanned planes it claims can fly as far as Iran.
Air force officials said the Heron TP drones have a wingspan of 26 meters, making them the size of passenger jets. They said the planes can fly 20 consecutive hours, and are primarily used for surveillance and carrying payloads.
The drones, built by state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries, were first used during Israel’s Gaza war last year.
At an inauguration ceremony Sunday, officials refused to say how large the new fleet is or whether the planes were designed for use against Iran.
Israel has previously halted nuclear proliferation in Syria (2007) and Iraq (1981) by way of manned aircraft strikes on key nuclear-related installations in those countries. Iran’s nuclear program, however, will be much more difficult to substantially destroy than either Iraq’s or Syria’s because the Iranians have diffused various portions of the nuclear program into many hardened facilities. Simply put, probably no one except the Iranians knows where all of their nuclear facilities are.
Accordingly, this Israeli announcement may be purely saber rattling as a successful military strike may be beyond Israel’s means and therefore not truly under serious consideration in Tel Aviv. Regardless, today’s disclosure of the new unmanned capacity to strike by Israel mark a new level of tit-for-tat escalation of the war of words between Israel and Iran following Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s claim of heightened nuclear enrichment capacity last week and the IAEA’s subsequent confirmation of his statement. This escalation is sure to impact the next moves of the Obama Administration on Iran policy as pressure builds on the White House to take a tougher line on Iran before Israel feels compelled to strike militarily.