Now that is just sad.

Iran. If you believed the former Bush administration, then Iran is the next greatest threat to American Freedom (C). Now what exactly would Iran use to threaten our freedom? Well...not very much. They tried, they really did. In fact I can almost see where the Iranian President painted a smiley face on the corner of their 'weapons' for such good effort!

Take for instance their 'brand new' and 'advanced' fighter jet, the Shafagh.



According to the commander of the Iranian Air Army, General Attollah Salehi, the new fighter is "similar to the F-18 fighter jet, but it is more capable and has been manufactured domestically… designed, remodeled, optimized and made more capable by our engineers… no country has aided us in its production." So apparently it not only is similar to a F/A-18, but superior, well we better be sure to keep our fighter pilots on high alert. And it gets even better. Yes, those amazing Iranian engineers and scientists have made it a stealth air craft! But not the stealth like we are used to. No, instead of absorbing or dispersing radar waves, you know, the way us silly Westerners go about doing it, the Shafagh is "more difficult to pick up on the radar systems compared with the normal version due to its higher maneuverability". Yes, the Shafagh is so advanced it out maneuvers those pesky radar waves.

What I find a bit sad though is that it isn't a newly developed airframe at all. It you take a close look, it is just a modified F-5E Tiger II, take a look:



In fact the US sold a few F-5's to Iran and many other countries. They were outdated versions of the T-38 trainer and giving such technology to independent nations would make them feel good about themselves (they have big boy toys now!). Other then turning the single tail into a twin and some possible avionics upgrades, there really isn't much distinguishing it from the old 'Tigersharks' that we sold to them. Which were outdated back in the 1970's.

So we know that Iran has 'Advanced Stealth Fighters' but they recently showed their newest piece of doomsday warfare, the unmanned bomber named the Karrar (the Farsi word for Striker). This terror of the skies is..well...I'll just let you see for yourself:



Wow...I wonder if it was one of those snap together models or one of the super hard ones that require glue and stuff. But it gets worse. Yes, it can get worse. Not worse as in terrifying (as, honestly, I would be more worried that it would lose control and end up crashing on me then able to actually hit it's target) but worse in how the Iranian's describe their new 'toy'. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that "The jet, as well as being an ambassador of death for the enemies of humanity, has a main message of peace and friendship,". Wait...what? So this is the happy drone of sharing and friendship? What about that whole 'ambassador of death', was that just a joke? I really don't know how else to say how sad this is. There just are not proper words for this level of fail.

So those are the latest threats coming out of Iran. This is the best Iran has to offer. In all honesty, if I was an American fighter pilot or controlled a UCAV (Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle), I would almost feel bad if I ever had to go toe to toe with these feats of Iranian ingenuity. I would imagine it would have the same feeling as pushing over the little kid who just really wants to play with the big kids. You could do it quite easily but you would feel horrible afterward.