Obama requests Iran to give back downed U.S. drone

lift the sanctions and get your downed drone back may be Iran's response(?)

I'm sure they'd love to give it back but darn it, because of those sanctions it would be illegal for them to trade with the US

Well, that took chutzpah....

This is such outrages rubbish, if the drone was so secret US would have just put another drone over and destroyed it they want the drone out there, same as they gave the chinese the communiction plane to look at a number of years back.

you never know.....The US may have just dropped the drone in Iran for a reason. While the Iranians are downloading data from the drone, it may also be downloading viruses, patches so the US can infiltrate thier computer systems, etc....

Ha! Balls to ask but really, no way are they getting that back - and fair enough! I doubt the US would give Iran a drone back.

Gurukun. Like the idea, but I think WIll Smith did it in Independence Day. Still a damn good idea.

the iranian government is more monstrous than hitler ever was, wanting to kill all jews. but even then, how can the USA government be so tremendously stupid, telling the iranian gov: "please return my secret toy, so that i can continue violating your airspace and spying on you, thank you very kindly".

but of course, this was all planned by the cia, nsa, etc, the flying spy toy is full of misleading information and misleading technology.

TakahiroDomingoDec. 13, 2011 - 09:46AM JST the iranian government is more monstrous than hitler ever was, wanting to kill all jews

It's dumb to make comparison with Hitler. Same comparison was done with Saddam Hussain. Sure, Iran does not use good choice of words and lack diplomacy, but International community has to continue to work through diplomatic channels. So far they have not directly attacked anybody (other than Iran-Iraq war).

So, the US wants Iran to give back an aircraft that was flying illegally in and spying from Iranian skies?

Not until China & Russia had a good look at it.

A groveling, Carter-esque mode of diplomacy when the stakes are at their highest just might be the president's secret weapon against his republican foes.

Ridiculous request. USA should have just apologized and request from the Iranian government to act more rationally in order to lift the sanctions. How can you expect from an authoritarian state to send you back a surveillance drone that you sent to spy on them? Unless it's part of a long term plan in order to provoke Iran even more. I don't want to believe that though...

Good luck with that

That's the kind of request I would expect from our Community-Organizer-in-Chief...

What's the use? Even if they get it back, it would've been already photographed and studied to hell and back.

JUst did a spit-take at the title alone. Funny stuff!

By the way, hasn't anyone heard of a self-destruct mechanism? Seriously!

By the way, hasn't anyone heard of a self-destruct mechanism? Seriously!

I know, it is indeed an almost laughable oversight. Then again if it included even the smallest explosive to make it self destruct, then it would probably be classified as a weapon, and the US would be accused of committing an act of war.

Soon it is Christmas, and maybe Santa Claus or Arthur Christmas will be on a mission to make Obama happy.

One thing bothers me. How did they get that thing down in such perfect condition? Did it glide down? How did it land with no scratches? Did they use a giant fishing net? Puzzling.

Usually there are only two answers: Yes or No, but never with "ho, ho, ho." He has got to be kidding.

Obama has gone past bowing deeply before the world's despots. He's now on his knees begging Iran.

He really is the Appeaser-in-Chief.

RR

nandakandamanda, I'd read something about the "fluttering leaf effect": if, due to some glitch, contact is lost and the plane is on its own, it might have a tendency to circle lower and lower until landing. Even loss of engine power with such a flying wing shape could lead to it landing without significant damage.

Still, one poster's idea above - that it is a ploy to install malware - is intriguing, if unlikely.

Iran had better watch it or they risk being thought uncool by Obama 's many, many young fans. The blowback? It would be horrific.

@nandakandamanda:

One possibility is that the drone gently crashed into the soft desert sands, no explosions, not much damage ... specially to the systems and circuits.

Might be that the US is saying the truth, that the drone has indeed malfunctioned and just drifted into Iranian airspace (hey, what the drone was doing in the Middle East is another topic) and eventually glided down to earth. As for the intentional "malware/virus ploy, well, anything's possible ... but why use a drone? Can't the US think-tanks break into Iran's miliraty network and have up-to-date data every now and then?

Interesting suggestion on Al Jazeera video news clip that Iran has an army of dedicated hackers who might have succeeded in taking over control and landing it themselves.

Senior White House advisor Valerie Jarret was born in Iran. Maybe she can help Obama save some face.

This is too funny, the USA sends drones to SPY over IRAN, but this stupid drone has problems, the USA asks for it back?? It may sound crazy, but maybe the Iranians may just do it, to kind of show the world they are so nice??

Did obama asked to get it back in "One Piece" ? :p

Iran's response;

'Yes we can!'

but

'We won't!"

Stoopid Indonesian............

This is like shooting someone and asking for the bullet back.

Ridiculous request.

But if it were a Republican president, the GOP/TP would have voted unanimously to start WW3 before you could say boo.

The technical data of the RQ-170 will be evaluated by Russia and China for their own research of tactics to defeat the B-2A stealth bomber! The iranians will be rewarded with high tech weapons from Moscow and Beijiang in return of favour!

Obama: We have asked for it back.........Wasnt that was the so called :A fool's errand'?

if there was anything of importance on it or that threatening to technological advances, im sure it would have been destroyed.

"Hey mister, can we have our toy back?"

sushisake3

But if it were a Republican president, the GOP/TP would have voted unanimously to start WW3 before you could say boo.

This is just one more event paving the way for Obama's defeat. Savor it.

Who knows, maybe Obama's tougher than you think. Maybe if they don't give it back, then he'll say, it you don't give us our toy back we'll come into your yard and bring it back ourselves.

But I doubt it.

smithinjapan

So, the US wants Iran to give back an aircraft that was flying illegally in and spying from Iranian skies?

Read the headline

Obama requests Iran to give back downed U.S. drone

Why the obsession with avoiding blame when it is Obama in the wrong?

when it is Obama in the wrong?

@unreconstructed: Perhaps you could start by explaining how exactly Obama is in the wrong?

Time will tell, in the future if a B-2A stealth bomber shot out of sky, that will be credited with the iranian's contribution. The RQ170 has a very similar scale down aerodynamic and stealth character like the B-2A

It's strange that Russia and China are always the ones copying, like they're always behind the technology curve.

sfjp330 It's dumb to make comparison with Hitler. Same comparison was done with Saddam Hussain. Sure, Iran does not use good choice of words and lack diplomacy, but International community has to continue to work through diplomatic channels. So far they have not directly attacked anybody (other than Iran-Iraq war).

Its also dumb to make statements like this without checking facts. Iraq attacked Iran. With WMD's supplied by the goog old USA.

China owns Obama. $5.00 says this was a backdoor method to give them the technology they wanted. Would not put it past him.

RR

Yes, we want them to be diplomatic, while we invade their airspace.... nice

Seems like the soft-on-terror GOP/TP and their 'supporters' are too busy deciding which wife-cheating, flip-flopping anti-American candidate to throw in the ring against president Obama to worry about this important event in the war againstterrorism.

It's hard to know what's more closed - conservatives' minds or the coffin that is their 2012 election chances.

Really, where are the GOP candidates on this issue? Anywhere?

Oh and Rick Perry, Iran is a country, unlike the solar company....oops.

Have any posters heard comments from GOP candidates?

Hahahaha! Give it back? Lets see, send a spy bot inside my house and I find it and smash it! Then you knock on my door asking for it back! I say, sure! If you can get to the trash in the back yard past the wolf hounds! Hey, all's fair in love and war!

If Obama didn’t demand the plane back, conservatives would have branded the president weak on terror.

As it is, they still brand him weak on terror despite him taking out most of the AQ top management, something that the GOP could never do.

If Newt was president, Iran would probably be glass, the ME would be aflame, and the U.S. economy would be in the tank.

Oh wait, the GOP already put the economy in the tank under bush.

Talking tanks, but things would be different under Mitt.

Mitt would only have found out a week after the event when he had finally finished explaining off his latest litany of flip-flops. Then, only after he had ordered his butlers to tidy up the palatial yard behind his house, he might have got around to adjusting his toupee before stumbling out to the Tank to get a briefing from his defence boys.

Sorry, not going to happen.

If Obama didn’t demand the plane back, conservatives would have branded the president weak on terror.

He didn't demand it back, He politely asked for it back being the nice guy he is and all.

This incident looks a little suspicious on second glance.

Very little if any damage to the aircraft, no controlled detonation to destroy the plane....something's a little odd.

It;s already packed in a crate and destined for China.

Another war is brewing..

I wonder how much the Chinese offered for it

is it normal for countries to return spying hardware?

Maybe President Obama knows of a precedent for this?

The Iranians must be laughing their asses off.

As per non-Western media sources the drone's controls were commandeered (hacked) by an Iranian Electronic Warfare unit and the aircraft was brought down in a controlled landing. That's also why the self-destruct mechanism, which does exist on this aircraft, could not be activated.

The Iranians in effect overrode the US controls.

Pretty snazzy technique and it must have raised a lot of eyebrows in the Pentagon.

How many other US weapons are vulnerable in this way

"commandeered by an Iranian Electronic Warfare unit"

They must have had help from the Romulans.

China owns Obama. $5.00 says this was a backdoor method to give them the technology they wanted. Would not put it past him.

From the "your president" wing of crazed Yankee radicals. Republican presidential candidates such as Gingrich flat-out call for Iranian "regime change" and all is cool because they take no consequences for their speech, but what Iranians hear is that "We will attack you like we did Iraq."

Nice. So Bush leaves untold carnage on American equipment in Iraq - not to mention the 4,300 Americans killed and 30,000 injured - and the reactionists on this site jump all over Obama for an unmanned spy plane gone awry.

Priorities: Democrats to protect America; Republicans to protect themselves.

This is both silly and sad. This means that the US will have to advance the technology again to counteract the techniques that led up to the loss of the stealth drone as well as giving opponents the abilities to increase their own defenses against the spying abilities of the stealth drone.

I seriously doubt the Iranians could get the encryption codes to override the drone on their own. The Chinese, however... There's been an enormous amount of hacking and viruses eminating from within China's borders. I could see them offering some encryption data to Iran as a token of "friendship".

As for the request, that's just SOP. No one expects a FedEx delivery from Iran. You make the request just so that it goes on the public record that you are claiming it and it is not "salvage". The U.S. might one day actually get it back, but not until it has been disassembled and examined in detail by Iranian and Chinese engineers. The U.S. will get a big square box of the pieces from Iran with "Some Assembly Required" on the outside.

Either or both Russian and Chinese has provided electronic weapon that in the operation inside iran has lead to this 'embrassment'! But this is a good start, here this drone has provided a clue about the electronic character of B-2A stealth bomber as a mock up for experimental purposes. Shooting down a stealth bomber will greatly demoralrizing the aggressor's aggressiveness! If Mr Obama let this captured drone 'go', the future price will be high but if he takes action, the price at present shall be even higher!

Russian or Chinese help brought it down but it happened on Obama's watch.Problem for Obama is that is all American voters short attention spans are going to recall. This really hurts Obama in the area of national defense. I think Iran just took away the Bin Laden bump the Obama machine was gonna ride to 2012.

That drone was deployed in Kandahar of southern afghanistan. The taliban and their ally in northern pakistan were no where to operate 'radar' to detect aircrafts! It is very likely this stealthed drone has other purpose to spy on Iran, Pakistan and Xinjiang the most western part of China, to find out Chinese nuclear installations. Things will be very complicated if those data onboard recovered from the drone's hard disk indicated China was part of the captured drone's mission!

@just-a-guy

I'm no fan of the Yanks and their clumsy foreign policy, believe me, but I'd be more concerned if it turned out they weren't keeping an eye on Chinese nuclear ambitions, rather than the opposite.

If the Iranians or the Chinese hack Obama's tele-prompter it is game over.

The Pentagon suggested three different options. Obama would not act on any of them.

Deliberate indecisiveness or the usual narcissistic delusions? - in this case believing that his words when translated will even thrill Iranian journalists and utopians the way they do the American variety.

Pa thetic.

Finders keepers. Sorry, Obama - but if you send up drones over foreign airspace and then they fail and crash (American tech lol), expect the nations they have fallen on to keep them. No brainer. Not that I endorse the mad Mullahs and general scum running Iran, just being realistic.

The One Percent Media will run enough interference and b.s. to save their hero Obama.

Maybe Iran President Ashmadinejhad is angry that Obama took out Ousama Bin Laden.

Our poor neo-cons are just too afraid to say what they really want to say.

"Bomb Iran! We want another war fought by other people for we don't have the courage of conviction to do so ourselves."

Our poor neo-cons are just too afraid to say what they really want to say.

What's a 'neo-con'? For years I have asked for a definition by those who use the term but they have proven incapable of giving one. As far as I can tell it is used the same way 'fascist' is used by "liberals": to describe anyone who bests Lefty in debate.

"Bomb Iran! We want another war fought by other people for we don't have the courage of conviction to do so ourselves."

This "logic" asserts that Iran is Iraq. The same line of thought would thereby mean Libya and Afghanistan are also Iraq and Obama is Bush.