“The US government’s response, I believe, appears to be based more on domestic political reasons than on the real risks that the fact that this balloon crossed US skies might have implied,” Kahhat said in a radio interview.
The specialist was questioned after Washington reported that it shot down the balloon and destroyed three other flying objects and considered the hot air balloon a spy.
He added that if the balloon were a spy tool, it would be too clumsy, since “it was the size of three buses, had crossed several countries and was visible to the naked eye for part of its journey”.
Kahhat noted that the US Pentagon had warned that if the plane were to fly over sites of strategic interest, such as nuclear silos in Montana, the information would add little to what China could have obtained from satellites.
Referring to the political context of the media outcry sparked around the alleged “spy balloon,” he noted that it happened on the eve of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who became his country’s first foreign minister to visit China since 2018.
The analyst added that everything seems to indicate that the balloons are not uncommon given that they have already been spotted in the past, but “now there is an urgency to shoot them down so as not to appear weak in front of China because former President Donald Trump urged them to be shot down.”
“It’s a response that, I repeat, has more to do with domestic than national security issues,” he said.
ro/mrs