Reframing potential Iranian fighter jet purchases as a military threat to Europe is bizarre. https://twitter.com/SecPompeo/status/1275473589987422210

Yes, the planes Iran might purchase do have decent ranges. But so did Gaddafi's and Saddam's Su-24s. Yet we never saw them attacking targets in Europe when war erupted.

The reason of course is that the West has pretty good aerial capacities. In case of war with Iran, the US would destroy Iranian airbases and establish air superiority pretty quickly. Add to that the air defences and jets of neighbouring countries.

Iran's air force is highly outdated and the country's financial situation looks dire. Rebuilding the Iranian Air Force into a numerically large state of the art force, let alone one capable of challenging the West, is just not realistic. It's also not what Iran wants

Last but not least, Iran can already target many places in the marked areas using its ballistic missiles. Why use an expensive fighter jet on a de-facto suicide mission with extremely little chance of success instead?

In short, Pompeo's tweet is just a highly transparent attempt to spin the potential lifting of the arms embargo into a direct military threat against Europe.

In terms of plausibility, it reminds me of that 1980s claim that the Nicaraguan Sandinista tank fleet was only two days of driving away from the Texan border.