In Iran war, cheap drones remain wild card

The first black-and-white surveillance image shows a simple factory complex on a tree-lined road west of the Iranian city of Isfahan. In a second image, the factory, which United States Central Command said was manufacturing drones, had been blown to pieces, leaving shards of debris and blackened skeletal frames where buildings once stood.

Central Command released the before-and-after images last week, showing what it purported to be “another major blow” to “Iran’s defense industrial base,” while serving as a kind of promise to allies in the Persian Gulf that the barrage of Shahed attack drones targeting their population centers and energy infrastructure would eventually be stopped.

It is a promise the United States might not be able to keep. The Shahed drones are cheap weapons made with off-the-shelf parts that can be assembled in a smaller workshop than the site near Isfahan University of Technology targeted by the United States.

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