(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - Michael Walker wrote on the openDemocracy website that the bid by senior members of the Obama administration to ask for the return of a US reconnaissance drone, which Iran had brought down deep in its territory, was a “bizarre step” and “displayed considerable chutzpah.”
“The drone had violated Iranian airspace, an illegal and dangerous action, especially when you consider that Iran and the US do not have diplomatic relations and leading US officials have refused to rule out attacking Iran over its nuclear program,” Walker said.
He further argued that asking for the drone back also “smacked of hypocrisy and double standards.”
“Just imagine how the US would have responded had the Iranians sent a jet into American airspace! It's not exactly far-fetched to assume some form of military 'reprisal' would occur in such circumstances,” Walker added.
He said the US government had even considered infiltrating a commando unit into Iran to retrieve or blow up the lost spy plane, or destroying it by an air strike.
However, these options were rejected “because of the potential it could become a larger incident,” Walker quoted a US official as saying.
Walker added if the response of the Obama administration to the drone incident has been “cack-handed and hypocritical,” the reaction of Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Rick Perry has been “genuinely alarming.”
“I find it incomprehensible that he didn't destroy it or go get it,” Romney had said on December 14th. “I think destroying it would have been a good deal easier. Destroy it immediately or go get it.”
Romney's aggressive remarks were echoed by his rival Perry, who had said, “What we should have done was one of two things: we either destroy it or we retrieve it.”
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