Iraq Feature: State Department Drones Are Overhead...But For How Long? (Schmitt/Schmitt)

A month after the last American troops left Iraq, the State Department is operating a small fleet of surveillance drones here to help protect the United States Embassy and consulates, as well as American personnel. Some senior Iraqi officials expressed outrage at the program, saying the unarmed aircraft are an affront to Iraqi sovereignty.

The program was described by the department’s diplomatic security branch in a little-noticed section of its most recent annual report and outlined in broad terms in a two-page online prospectus for companies that might bid on a contract to manage the program. It foreshadows a possible expansion of unmanned drone operations into the diplomatic arm of the American government; until now they have been mainly the province of the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency.

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US Opinion: Are We Suffering from "Drone Hysteria"? (Osboune)

US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta justifies the killing by drone in Yemen of Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen

See also: US Opinion: Do Drones Undermine Democracy? (Singer)

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Anyone who decries a “new surge” of military interest in drones is just admitting they never paid attention before, that they don’t know what they’re talking about, and that they are riding on the word “drone” because it’s trendy and scary. Such opinions should carry exactly as much weight as a paper airplane, because they aren’t really about drones at all but war in general. There is nothing a drone can do that could not be done up close and personal, though at greater risk. A drone merely removes risk from the attacker — which is what warriors have been doing since the invention of the bow and arrow.

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US Opinion: Do Drones Undermine Democracy? (Singer)

In democracies like ours, there have always been deep bonds between the public and its wars. Citizens have historically participated in decisions to take military action, through their elected representatives, helping to ensure broad support for wars and a willingness to share the costs, both human and economic, of enduring them.

In America, our Constitution explicitly divided the president’s role as commander in chief in war from Congress’s role in declaring war. Yet these links and this division of labor are now under siege as a result of a technology that our founding fathers never could have imagined.

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Iran Feature: Is This How Tehran Took Down the US Drone? (Peterson/Faramarzi)

Iran guided the CIA's "lost" stealth drone to an intact landing inside hostile territory by exploiting a navigational weakness long-known to the US military, according to an Iranian engineer now working on the captured drone's systems inside Iran.

Iranian electronic warfare specialists were able to cut off communications links of the American bat-wing RQ-170 Sentinel, says the engineer, who works for one of many Iranian military and civilian teams currently trying to unravel the drone’s stealth and intelligence secrets, and who could not be named for his safety.

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The Latest from Iran (10 December): After the Drone Show

See also Iran Analysis: Will the European Union Ban Imports of Tehran's Oil? (Probably.)
The Latest from Iran (9 December): The Return of the Hidden Drone

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2110 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Filmmaker Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, detained in September, has been released from prison.

Mirtahmasb was one of six directors seized on charges that they worked for BBC Persian.

1630 GMT: Surveillance Watch. Huawei Technologies, a leading Chinese manufacturer of telecommunications equipment, has said on its website that it will voluntarily restrict business in Iran because of the “increasingly complex situation” there.

Huawei declared it will not seek new customers will limit business activities with existing clients.

The company did not give a reason for the the pull-back but it has come under pressure on the Internet for the potential use of its technology for repression.

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The Latest from Iran (8 December): Waiting for the Return of the Hidden Drone

Iran TV's presentation of the claimed US drone

See also The Latest from Iran (7 December): Rallying the Students

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1820 GMT: Drone Watch. More of the regime's presentation of the supposed US RQ-170 drone --- a Revolutionary Guards commander proclaims, "The drone was caught in an electronic ambush and it was brought down with minimum damage. With God's assistance, we caught one of the most advanced American planes, in a trap set by Iran."

The left wing of the aircraft appeared to be broken and mended on the beige-coloured drone. The belly of the plane was covered with posters, “We’ll trample America underfoot.”

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The Latest from Iran (6 December): The Drone Mystery

See also Iran Video: Free Nasrin Sotoudeh
Iran Analysis: Fact and Fiction on the Crash of an Advanced US Drone
The Latest from Iran (5 December): A Regime in Deadlock Drones On

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2045 GMT: The House Arrests. An EA correspondent reports that Mohammad Hossein Karroubi, the son of the detained opposition figure Mehdi Karroubi, has revealed that he met his father for 30 minutes on Saturday afternoon.

The younger Karroubi, writing on Facebook, said that he was joined by his mother Fatemeh, who has also been held under strict house arrest since mid-February. The meeting took place at the family's new home in Jamaran in north Tehran.

Mehdi Karroubi was reportedly in good spirits and improving health, having suffered from respiratory problems this autumn. He now has an entire floor of the house where he is held and is given two daily newspapers, Ettelaat and Jam-e Jam, to read.

1845 GMT: Virtual Diplomacy Watch. The US Government has launched its "Virtual Embassy" to "work as a bridge between the American and Iranian people", with "latest news", visa services, and information on "Study in the USA" and "Open Societies".

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Iran Analysis: Fact and Fiction on the Crash of an Advanced US Drone

RQ-170 Sentinel DroneSpeculation continues over the alleged downing of a US drone by the Iranian military, with Tehran claiming it holds a "lightly damaged", Lockheed Martin RQ-170, the latest generation of stealth aircraft, which they brought down with cyber-warfare as the airplane patrolled eastern Iran. US military officials have reportedly told Fox News that an RQ-170 Sentinel has been lost in operations in western Afghanistan, but they deny that it fell prey to "hostile action".

So what can we establish as fact and what can we dismiss as fiction?

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The Latest from Iran (5 December): A Regime in Deadlock Drones On

Mana Neyestani comments on the international situation

See also Iran Analysis: Re-Assessing the Explosion at the Revolutionary Guards Base
The Latest from Iran (4 December): When Your Dad is a Political Prisoner

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1930 GMT: The Embassy Attacks. In the aftermath of the storming of the British Embassy, international schools in Tehran have closed.

The French school is located on grounds of the British Embassy and children were in class when protesters moved through the compound gates. Windows at the German school nearby were shattered. Teachers at the British school had sent students home early.

Parents have been told that foreign teachers and their families have left Iran. The French school hopes to resume lessons on Sunday, and the British school in the New Year.

1900 GMT: Arresting the President's Men. The President's media advisor Ali Akbar Javanfekr, already sentenced to a year in prison for an issue of his Iran newspaper, has claimed that he was forced to give a controversial interview to the daily newspaper Etemaad.

In the interview, Javanfekr sharply criticised senior clerics and conservatives/principlists who challenged Ahmadinejad. The article led to the banning of Etemaad; the next day, Javanfekr was given his one-year sentence, and the day after that, security forces ransacked the Iran building as they tried to detain the advisor.

Javanfekr did not say who forced him to give the interview.

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