And now for the cheekiest propaganda move of the week….
It was one thing for Iran’s Revolutionary Guards to boast this week that they had successfully flown a homemade advanced drone, based on the US RQ-170 unpiloted vehicle that was downed in the Islamic Republic in December 2011.
It is another to offer a present to the US of one of Iran’s new drones — as an improvement on the American model, of course — if Washington will sanctions.
That’s what General Amir Ali Hajizadeh did on Wednesday in a press conference:
We have plans to bring into operation, at least, four indigenized RQ-170 drones for missions by the end of this [Iranian] year [on March 20]….
We will not extradite the US RQ-170 drone since it is a (war) trophy, but if the US sanctions against Iran are lifted, maybe we will give the US an Iranian model of the drone.
Hajizadeh had already said that Iran’s version of the RQ-170 was ready for bombing and surveillance. State TV aired footage of a claimed first flight of the drone, said to be 60% lighter than its American ancestor: