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Comment by okusername | Hacker News Reader

Is that smart? Isn't that just a free pentest for Iran, so they can close some holes?

Or say you launched a cyber attack, but really you didn't, then they waste their time looking for non-existent backdoors. Considering the NSA has some pretty deep implants (uefi level, hard drive firmware level, iot/embedded) that can pass through airgaps (see: stuxnet), it'll be quite expensive to do a full sweep.

If they do manage a full sweep, the world is one step closer to spyware-free consumer hardware ^^

Well the system has to go down, if the Iranians can keep shooting missiles just fine there is no point to it.

This wasn’t like they hacked into the network so they could deface a website or pop up a “You’ve been hacked!” message on the machines.

Recall the Iranian attack on Saudi banks which encrypted 30,000 desktops and destroyed the backups?

The implication is that the attack caused permanent or difficult to repair damage to the systems. There is a quote that they expect it to take months to bring everything back online.

I’m guessing it was meant to be more rhetorical than anything. It seems this was akin to a denial of service of sorts, so I think if US wanted to cause serious damage they would have.

They wouldn't have done it for nothing. If there's any truth in it, presumably it would have been part of a wider US attack, which Trump supposedly called off at the last minute.

Trump calling the attack off was a surprisingly sober call on his part. Killing Iranians because an unmanned drone was attacked, that at best flew purposefully extremely close to Iran's border, at worst actually crossed into it, would be an extremely unequal response and a major escalation.

I imagine part of the reason they shot it down is because the rhetoric coming from Washington is such, that an attack could come at any moment and is hard for the Iranians to tell if this is it or not, (which I think is part of the U.S. tactic to provoke them to do something stupid).

The U.S. would not tolerate Chinese drones off its coast either.

It likely would, just as it tolerated Soviet (now Russian) recon flights along the borders.

That is mutual under the "open skies" policy. But they don't like Russian presence in Venezuela and they certainly didn't like Soviet nukes in Cuba, even as they had U.S. ones in Turkey that the Soviets were supposed to tolerate.

Now, China is competitor number 1, so I don't think they would, (unless China agreed to do the same at its borders). And is not like Iran is not tolerating countless U.S. military bases around its borders, I just suspect they're at the edge of their seats, expecting an attack and sending an armed drone to their border doesn't seem too friendly.

The U.S. also knows that Russian planes flying are not there to bomb them, whereas the Iranians are hearing constant rhetoric that the U.S. is just about to bomb them.

No, under Open Skies the flights are over the national territory. This is not the same as non-negoitated probing flights along the border over international waters. These happen regularly.

Yeah, except it is not clear this in fact was "over international waters". The U.S. says it was, the Iranians say the drone crossed into their airspace. Now I know many take the U.S. word for it, but given the escalating rhetoric, given Iraq, given people like John Bolton are in the administration, I wouldn't.

Moreover, as I said, the U.S. knows Russia is not about to conduct a surprise bombing raid on them, so does Russia know the same of the U.S. - They both have nuclear weapons and doing so would be catastrophic for both sides. Iran on the other hand expects a U.S. bombing raid any moment and in fact Trump just admitted one was ready to go ahead, so it's a bit different.

In fact, I suspect the U.S. knows all this and provoking a reaction from the Iranians to support further action from the U.S. was precisely the goal of this drone.

I don't think "US knows it" is how border safety works. Either way I fail to see your point how that would be different with China.

As to motives, who knows. Iran could be trying to move confrontation from economic to military, where it has a shot on regional parity. With all talk about Bolton, Iraq, Vietnam and on this admin is very docile. Iran came out on top from this confrontation, bolstering its regional influence, so why not.

Iran has zero ability to win a regional war against the US, unless you consider bombing Israel to be critical damage to the US, or if the US has no stomt for Iranian casualties.

> According to well-informed sources, Iran rejected a proposal by US intelligence – made via a third party – that Trump be allowed to bomb one, two or three clear objectives, to be chosen by Iran, so that both countries could appear to come out as winners and Trump could save face. Iran categorically rejected the offer and sent its reply: even an attack against an empty sandy beach in Iran would trigger a missile launch against US objectives in the Gulf.

> Iran is not inclined to help Trump come down from the tree he has climbed and would rather keep him confused and cornered. Furthermore, Iran would love to see Trump fail to win a second term, and will do everything to help oust him from the White House at the end of his mandate in 2020.

> Moreover, Iran has established a joint operations room to inform all its allies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan of every step it is adopting in confronting the US in case of all-out war in the Middle East. Iran’s allies have increased their level of readiness and alert to the highest level; they will participate in the war from the moment it begins if necessary. According to sources, Iran’s allies will not hesitate to open fire against an already agreed on bank of objectives in a perfectly organised, orchestrated, synchronised and graduated response, anticipating a war that may last many months.

[...]

> Sources confirmed that, in case of war, Iran aims to stop the flow of oil from the Middle East completely, not by targeting tankers but by hitting the sources of oil in every single Middle Eastern country, whether these countries are considered allies or enemies. The objective will be to cease all oil exports from the Middle East to the rest of the world.

https://ejmagnier.com/2019/06/21/iran-and-trump-on-the-edge-...

I can't comprehend why national governments would engage in backroom deals to allow false flag attacks on themselves, knowing they'd be leaked immediately.

> Trump calling the attack off was a surprisingly sober call on his part.

I am not too sure. The US are already attacking Iran, by strangling its economy, effectivly subjecting it to a blockade. They don't need an open war for that, it would be an unnecessary cost, economic and diplomatic- but at the same time they have to show they're absolutely ready for it.

For the US (but in fact Israel and Saudi Arabia, the only ones that gain from this) the best option is to keep choking Iran in silence, without much hassle, so the rest of the world can keep looking the other way.

> The US are already attacking Iran, by strangling its economy, effectivly subjecting it to a blockade.

That is true, it's a policy the U.S. has employed in Iraq prior to the 2003 invasion and is now also perusing in Venezuela. In some ways you're right, it makes it look like Iran's acting in a vacuum and the U.S. is doing nothing to provoke it.

On the other hand, if they were to bomb Iran, it's not like they'd let the sanctions go in exchange for the bombing, it would be in addition to the sanctions. And yes, it would draw minimal condemnation from the EU, China and Russia, but that's about it.

You could have said the same about Iraq in 2003.

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