[gocard14]

I don't think the Iranian drones are being shipped the long way through the Persian Gulf, Indian Ocean, Red Sea, Med Sea, Black Sea and Sea of Azov.  Presumably, they are being shipped on, or over, the Caspian Sea, or maybe over Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan.  If true, those shipments don't seem too vulnerable.

The US and NATO are now to some degree being hoisted on their on petard. We claim immunity from Russian action while weapons are in transit via NATO countries. We also concede that Ukraine (and NATO) cannot attack on "Russian territory". We can't do anything to Iran that we wouldn't let Russia do to Poland. Really cuts down on our options.

One thing we can do is tell Russia that for any Iranian weapon they use that has a published range of X km, we will feel free to deliver weapons to Ukraine with equal range. Given that Iran claims the Shahed-136 has a published range of several hundred (actually thousand, but who cares?) km, ATACMS is now "like for like". They get Shahed-136s from Iran, Ukraine gets ATACMS from us.

In addition we can let it be known that there will no longer be any restrictions on using long range fires to strike targets within Russian borders. After all, they are already striking “Russian territory”, so what’s the difference?

Also if we happened to let the Israelis know any relevant intelligence about Irans drone production and they happened to do something, that would be a shame.

[gocard14]

I don't think the Iranian drones are being shipped the long way through the Persian Gulf, Indian Ocean, Red Sea, Med Sea, Black Sea and Sea of Azov.  Presumably, they are being shipped on, or over, the Caspian Sea, or maybe over Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan.  If true, those shipments don't seem too vulnerable.

The US and NATO are now to some degree being hoisted on their on petard. We claim immunity from Russian action while weapons are in transit via NATO countries. We also concede that Ukraine (and NATO) cannot attack on "Russian territory". We can't do anything to Iran that we wouldn't let Russia do to Poland. Really cuts down on our options.

One thing we can do is tell Russia that for any Iranian weapon they use that has a published range of X km, we will feel free to deliver weapons to Ukraine with equal range. Given that Iran claims the Shahed-136 has a published range of several hundred (actually thousand, but who cares?) km, ATACMS is now "like for like". They get Shahed-136s from Iran, Ukraine gets ATACMS from us.

In addition we can let it be known that there will no longer be any restrictions on using long range fires to strike targets within Russian borders. After all, they are already striking “Russian territory”, so what’s the difference?

Also if we happened to let the Israelis know any relevant intelligence about Irans drone production and they happened to do something, that would be a shame.