Don’t miss In From the Cold’s analysis of the potential sale of F-16s by Hugo Chavez to the mullahs. Spook86 has become an invaluable resource for information of this kind you never find in the mainstream media.
PJ Media appreciates your comments that abide by the following guidelines:
1. Avoid profanities or foul language unless it is contained in a necessary quote or is relevant to the comment.
2. Stay on topic.
3. Disagree, but avoid ad hominem attacks.
4. Threats are treated seriously and reported to law enforcement.
5. Spam and advertising are not permitted in the comments area.
These guidelines are very general and cannot cover every possible situation. Please don't assume that PJ Media management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment. We reserve the right to filter or delete comments or to deny posting privileges entirely at our discretion. Please note that comments are reviewed by the editorial staff and may not be posted immediately. If you feel your comment was filtered inappropriately, please email us at story@pjmedia.com.
Here is a Venezuelan take on the whole F-16 issue:
http://blogs.salon.com/0001330/2006/05/16.html#a2860
Enjoy!
Here
If Hugo’s been maintaining those jets as carefully as he’s been looking after the roads, I so hope the Iranians buy them.
However, the story is all part of Hugo’s http://www.noticierodigital.com/img2006/hugoboss.php (pdf file) marketing competitive authoritarianism:
Antagonize the superpower: “Trashing the superpower serves the same purpose as antagonizing the domestic opposition: It helps to unite and distract his large coalition — with one added advantage. It endears him to the international left.”
Additionally, the jets story was hyped by the media, while yesterday a much more interesting story was ignored:
Earlier this month, Iranian authorities gave backing for the launch of an oil exchange that traded solely in euros.
Some reports have suggested Iran’s move may be part of a bid to undermine the importance of the dollar.
. . .
Experts have suggested that, should Iran demand payment for its exports in euros, central banks could opt to convert some of their dollar reserves to euros and therefore possibly trigger a further decline in the US currency.
Underreported, except at al-Jazeera, was also Iran and Venezuela joined forces to undermine the U.S. dollar last February.
(I had a related post yesterday, with apologies for the shameless self-promotion)
Iran already has a couple F-14s from the days of the Shah, I doubt these would make a difference.
The only sensible purchaser interested in the F-16s would be a country that already has F-16s, and most likely those operating F-16A/B Block 15s without the OCU (to minimize operating incompatibilities; note that these are the least-upgraded F-16s in service anywhere)ówith the excepton that the Russians or the Chinese might like a few to test capabilities. Now, my resource on military aircraft is eight years out-of-date, but such operators were:
Belgium, Denmark, Egypt, Israel, Netherlands, Norway, and Pakistan (Block 15 no OCU); Indonesia, Jordan, Portugal, Singapore, and Thailand (Block 15 with OCU); and Bahrain, Greece, South Korea, Taiwan, and Turkey (other models of F-16).
And, of course, those countries, being dependent on U.S. support to operate them, would only buy them with U.S. permission (if only unofficial backchannel permission).