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How are you going to rely on Reuters to prove your argument if they themselves don’t have the proof? You said UAE paid a $10 Billion dollar bribe and now have to admit even Reuters doesn’t know that for sure.
The likeliest explanation is the one I supplied: this two-month-old story was part of the negotiations over the MOU, which means Iran never got that money back because the deal fell through. That would also explain why there’s no follow-up reporting anything close to what you alleged: it never happened.
Please look into “Deep Sensing” technology, also called “Ground Penetrating Radar”. For example:
https://clu-in.org/characterization/technologies/default2.focus/sec/Geophysical_Methods/cat/Ground_Penetrating_Radar/
I think one difference that surfaces in these discussions over and over again is our different priors about military technology. My sense is that the public thinks of satellites like giant cameras in space, and so they ascribe to satellites all the limitations that cameras have. I believe this understanding is 30-50 years out of date.
I think a lot of people are interpreting the American military’s posture as empty bluster because they don’t realize how good the tech is. Thousands of satellites in space, a few dozen sites that need monitoring. Iran is not invisible to us.
The MOU was drafted on the 14th and signed on the 17th, but the Reuters article was published on the 12th and the $3bil was already transferred prior to the publication of the article. Reuters’ proof is four sources familiar with the matter, and it would be pretty weird for them to make up this story wholecloth. Also, since my last comment, another UAE ship was struck near the Omani coast, bringing the the count to four ships from the UAE struck this week.
Yes, the fact that the MOU was adapted on the 14th means that this was happening in the period of negotiations leading up to the MOU.
Furthermore, Iranian drones targeting UAE ships is evidence against UAE paying a massive bribe.
“Four sources familiar with the matter” is like a bad parody of a source, because it could mean anything. But if we want to take it seriously: the story still doesn’t prove anything close to what you are suggesting.
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