Downed jets puncture #Trump's and Pentagon Pete Hegseth's claims of air invulnerability

Downed jets puncture #Trump’s and Pentagon Pete Hegseth’s claims of air invulnerability


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Downed jets puncture Trump’s and Hegseth’s claims of air invulnerability

Analysis by Aaron Blake, CNN • 23m

An Iran war that was already proving quite unpopular with the American people has entered a new, more problematic phase. That comes with the news that a US fighter jet was shot down over Iran.

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And that was followed by news that Iran hit a second US combat aircraft on Friday. The pilot was able to navigate the plane out of Iranian territory before ejecting from the aircraft and was subsequently rescued, a US official told CNN.

Neither of these incidents means Iran is suddenly on anything close to an equal footing militarily. And there have thus far been limited American casualties, including no known deaths in the last three weeks.

But in a conflict in which military dominance is the US’ chief advantage, this episode underscores the perils of asymmetric warfare, the costs of which the American public already isn’t buying.

These events also puncture the Trump administration’s claims about its complete dominance of the skies over Iran — along with the veneer of impenetrability it has attempted to construct over the past month.

Those claims had already been contradicted in a number of cases. But this is a case in point.

President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have suggested the United States and Israel had something amounting to free rein to fly over Iran. They cast Tehran as having no ability to counteract that.
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