Trump decided to work on the grid to avenge US' drone. (Image via: The Atlantic)

Drone Down, US Shuts Iran's System Down

WASHINGTON - “Revenge” is a dish best served cold. On Thursday (20/6), Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) decided to shoot down US’ drone, which they referred to as an “intruder”, after identifying the drone flying over Mubarak mountain in Hormozgan Province, Iran’s southern territory. Iran’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Javad Zarif, tweeted the incident as such:

"At 00:14 US drone took off from UAE in stealth mode & violated Iranian airspace. It was targeted at 04:05 at the coordinates (25°59'43"N 57°02'25"E) near Kouh-e Mobarak."

Meanwhile, soon after the taking down of US drone, the President of the United States, Donald Trump, stated that Iran’s deliberate action was a “very big mistake” on Thursday since Washington claimed that the drone was flying over Strait of Hormuz, an international airspace territory.

Being “generous”, on Friday (21/6), Trump stated that the US army was supposed to go all out over 3 Iran’s territories, only to be canceled by Trump just 10 minutes before the strike happened. In return, Trump chose a more indirect approach.

On Thursday, the US decided to crack Iran’s weapon system used by IRGC to shoot down US’ drone, rendering them offline for some period of time. The cyber-attack took weeks to prepare. This was as a retaliatory act for the drone and for the assault on 2 oil tankers belong to Japan and Norway.

In addition, Trump also slapped other sanctions on Iran, in the form of restriction of nuclear weapons and economic pressure. He said that the sanction would go on unless Iran humbled itself and turned from their wicked ways.

US and Iran had been at each other’s throat since the US pulled itself from its nuclear deal with Iran and slapped economic sanction which caused turmoil in Iran due to the shortage of goods. The sanction forbids all companies which ship or sell their product to Iran.

On Monday (17/6) last week, Iran threatened the world that by 27 June, uranium limit will be breached, unless the world would cooperate with Iran by protecting them from US harrowing sanction. To this, Trump stated that if Iran wanted to go at it with the US, there would be obliteration.

As usual, at the end of his statement, Trump stated that the US is open should Iran want to negotiate. In his 2016 campaign, Trump stated that he wanted to help Iran if they wanted to become a prosperous country, adding “Make Iran Great Again” as his counterpart for “Make America Great Again”.

It seems like, the reality does not meet with expectation for Iran.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-48661843