From the Washington Post report on the U.S. drone that Iranian jets chased away with some warning shots:
The MQ-1 Predator drone returned to its base unscathed, even as the Iranian aircraft chased it away from the Islamic Republic’s borders, Pentagon spokesman George Little said Thursday, disclosing details of an incident that the Obama administration chose to keep quiet during the final stretch of the presidential campaign.
…
An Iranian Su-25 fighter jet pursued the U.S. drone as it retreated from Iranian airspace, the spokesman said.
I find it somewhat relieving that the Pentagon actually admits that its drone violated Iranian airspace. It is somewhat disturbing though that other reports do not mention this. They indeed say the opposite:
“Our aircraft was never in Iranian airspace,” Mr. Little said. “It was always flying in international airspace.”
In the DoD news briefing Little repeated that line at least four times.
So I wonder where the WaPo writer, Ernesto Londoño, picked up the "retreated from Iranian airspace" detail.
It may well be that Londoño is correct. The international borders in the area east of Kuwait are not well defined, neither on land nor at sea. The three countries have never agreed on any of them. Cyrus Safardi reminds us of an incident in 2007 when Iranians plucked a British patrol from the sea:
At the time the UK govt claimed repeatedly that the Marines had been captured inside Iraqi waters. The London Times reported, a year after the event, that the Brits had simply decided to draw their own boundary lines, without telling anyone else.
The Pentagon may be doing the same here. If the ownership of various islands and the borders between Iraq, Kuwait and Iran, especially at sea, are disputed how then can the Pentagon claim that the drone was exactly 16 miles away from Iranian territory and 4 miles away from Iran's sovereign 12 mile zone?
Iran has confirmed the incident but did not say anything about where it happened.