I know what you’re all thinking, why the fuck is Iran so quiet on this one?
I’m no plonker and I wager neither are you but there’s something off about the Middle East today. Last night Israel retaliated, fair enough, your time to shine and all but the whole thing felt a little… relaxed? After their attack plans were doxxed last week and opened up to the world, it became pretty clear Israel was looking for a scrap. How these documents leaked and if the Americans leaked them deliberately to postpone the conflict post-US Election remains a theory shared only between me and my notebook.
So the Americans cock block your rev up to warfare, and Iran is sitting waiting for something to cross their border, be it boots or ICBM, leaving you to walk the fine line between upsetting Uncle Sam and ending the Middle East as we know it.
At midnight UTC the skies are clear and rockets start to fly over to Iran. By 2 am-ish the noise has settled and passenger jets are back in the sky.
Imagine my confusion by 11 am UTC when I see six Boeing KC-135 Stratotankers cruising up and down the Shia Crescent in full view of the world’s most basic aviation trackers. Now, for those of you not really aware of the game, forces don’t often show their tracking outside their groups as it’s hard to conduct these operations when the world is watching and makes it a little easier for the enemy to spot you in your silliness. Long story short, it was weird that these lot were tracking.
On top of that, their whole function is air-to-air refuelling. As in a jet rolls up at 25,000ft and sucks on the kerosene straw, of which a KC-135 can carry close to 90 tonnes of, and fucks off. No jets on the tracking which is normal but the refuelers showing up only made it normal-ish. Why hide the jets but show the tankers? OR MAYBE THERE WEREN’T ANY BLOODY JETS maybe we’ve been looking at this all wrong, maybe there aint shit to refuel, maybe they aren’t there to shift fuel at all maybe we’re looking at the KC-135s that were retrofitted with signals intelligence equipment allowing them to intercept and analyse electronic signals from enemy coms and radar. Plus, these things are getting old. They developed the KC-46 to replace these hunks of junk so if anything’s going to get blown out of the sky, may as well be the trash that’s on its last legs anyway. Long story short, they seemed to be there, in full view of the world to say we’re watching you, chumps.
Let me break this down.
They’re like two school children bickering, with a parent pacing the hallway every now and then looking to retain order. A couple of things are thrown, a few yelps are heard but nothing major. The parent (USA) comes storming in and grabs the older, more mature (Israel) by the arm and tells them to knock it the fuck off (Leaked Attack Plans), they’re on the phone (US Election) and need them to shut their mouths before everyone is sent to bed. In my eyes, the last few days have seen the older (Israel) look to the younger (Iran) and give them the finger as if to say I canny touch you but pull some shit and I’ll fuck ya up. The younger squeals at the sight and on cue the parent walks to the door (KC-135s) and leans against the frame, continuing their call with eyes glued on the two idiots sitting before them.
My worry is, what the fuck happens when the call ends and each starts screaming about what the other did. Iran will tell Uncle Sam they hate them and can’t wait for them to die and Israel will go “See, they’re clearly nuts. We should both smack the shit outa them.”
All we know for certain is the parent that puts down the phone won’t be the same that picked it up.
sheesh