Obama Tells Iran to Return Trojan Horse

Iranian General points out tiny chipmunks

We could take this late night moment to talk about something important. Newt Gingrich, renaissance man of yesteryear, is challenging GOP leader Romney, taking him down to the undergarments in recent polls. And over there is our president, Mr. Obama, meeting with the leader of Iraq, while reinforcing a campaign promise kept (which was easier done than said given Bush's already set withdrawal timeline, but whatevs).

Instead we want to talk to you about drones. Nothing technical or deeply philosophical. According to news reports, a drone of ours, a kind of unmanned plane perfectly sized for chipmunk vacations, opted through magic, Iranian cunning, bad electronics or voodoo to land in Iran. Not crash land. Not shot out of sky into a million bits. But land, comfortable and apparently intact. 

The Iranians were glad to display this acquisition as it no doubt reinforced the truth that the Great Satan (that would be us, as in U.S.A) was not so satanically powerful after all. "We got your drone" they said via display, with further threats to take it apart, rebuild it with Iranian sauce, and wreak stealthic havoc back on us. 

President Obama eventually got around to requesting the plane back, though the general delay and all around casualness should make Iranians a bit skeptical about saying the inevitable "No, you can't have it back, Sons of Satan!"

"We have asked for it back," Obama said Monday at a news conference in Washington with Iraqi Prime MinisterNouri Maliki"We'll see how the Iranians respond." 

His comments marked the first public confirmation that the RQ-170 Sentinel drone now in Iranian hands is a U.S. aircraft, though U.S. officials privately acknowledged that in recent days. Iran has claimed it downed the stealthy surveillance drone, but U.S. officials say it malfunctioned.

(LA Times)

Now we don't want to be Obama fan boys and imply that this whole implausible situation is merely a diabolical plot concocted by the President and his administration to land a homing device inside of Iranian research facilities, because that would be mental hyperbole. It would be the same type of thought pattern that allows extreme conservatives to place Obama at the center of all and variable diabolical evils.

And yet,. the utter casualness in the official responses the past few days is almost comical, culminating in an almost ridiculous request to have the drone returned. Let's pretend the United States is Greece. Let's pretend Iran is Troy. Let's pretend horses can fly, like unicorns, and call them drones. Now let's pretend we land one or allow one to get captured. Now let's pretend certain components inside the flying horse are deeply locked and will take years to open and define. Now let's pretend Troy really gets on our nerves. And finally, let's pretend we turn the homing device on, and unload mega bombs on whatever high security research site is trying to backward engineer the horse.

Which is why if I were Iran, I would send it back and make a huge public relations gesture out of it.

While we strive to not get toasted and go conspiratorial here, hating the tendency in others, we nevertheless can't help but imagine what spy versus spy shenanigans might be going on between Iran and the United States. There is mystery in the belly of beast.