Iran Shakes US Air Superiority; Trump Spirals Into Bigger Humiliation

A downed US jet over Iran has turned into a contested Isfahan rescue fiasco that has left Trump wearing the bigger humiliation. Right, so rescue one downed crewman, rescued two or was it really a uranium centric ruse? Whatever the truth of the downed F15, who can possibly believe one version of events over another anymore? Donald Trump has ended up neck deep in his own nappies. A US fighter has come down over Iran, both crewmen have ended up on Iranian territory, one has been reported recovered first, and the second has then become the centre of a much bigger row around southern Isfahan, with one side claiming a daring extraction and the other side insisting the rescue mission turned into a bigger humiliation and then did it happen at all, or was it all about that enriched uranium? The images now doing the rounds are not images of command, not images of control, not images of clean superiority, but wreckage, smoke and a field in Isfahan attached to fresh claims of further US losses. Now none of this sits tucked away in some briefing room where they can smother it in official language. This is a step by step public mess that ordinary people can follow quite easily. An American F-15E has come down over Iran, both crewmen have ended up stranded inside Iranian territory, one has been hauled out first, and the second has then hung over the whole war long enough to turn the follow-up mission into the bigger public row. Trump can shout that he got his man all he likes, but when the story attached to your name is a downed jet, stranded crew, a contested rescue and fresh wreckage strewn across Isfahan, his strongman act starts sounding like a desperate child trying to cover up his own mess when he missed the potty. Iranian forces destroyed two C-130 transport aircraft and two Black Hawk helicopters during the botched US attempt to recover that second pilot of the downed fighter in southern Isfahan.