Comment by nradov

While attacking Iran was a stupid decision, losing some MQ-9 Reaper drones by itself isn't unexpected or a real problem. The US military had already stopped procuring those drones years ago specifically because they aren't survivable against modern air defense systems. The ones already in inventory are a sunk cost so might as well get some use out of them. Calculating it as a $1.3B loss makes no sense from that perspective since they have to be replaced anyway.