Missile Envy

Why spend billions on turbofans, alloys, and other missile parts when Adobe Photoshop costs around $650?

Then again, perhaps the Iranian Revolutionary Guard doctored an image of Iran's missile tests because three missiles just didn't present the pleasing symmetry that four would.

News organizations around the world picked up the photo of Iran flexing its missile muscle, including Yahoo! News,  the Financial Times, and the Los Angeles Times. According to NPR, however, the Web site Little Green Footballs and the New York Times both noticed something was awry. It turned out the fourth airborne missile was a fake: As an NYT photography editor told USA Today, it had been "cloned, and rather sloppily."

Huffington Post blogger Harry Shearer (a.k.a. Mr. Montgomery Burns and other Simpsons characters) went even further to say the photo could be a rerun from two years back. U.S. military intelligence hasn't confirmed that, although they told CNN that Iran fired only one missile on day two rather than a round. (The alleged photo was taken on the first day.)

To be fair, the image wasn't completely misleading, merely... hopeful. There had been four missiles, but one misfired. Would that fact have eased jitters, which in turn stoked up oil prices and likely contributed to the Dow's freefall on Friday? Does the fakery both lessen the European Union's worry about Gulf tensions, or give even more weight to Russia's statement that the U.S. doesn't need missile defenses in Eastern Europe?

Iran might not be the only country with performance issues. The Union of Concerned Scientists say the U.S. missile defense isn't all that either. Whether that'll stop all the tough talk remains to be seen... if we can believe our eyes.