It's often said that you shouldn't pretend to be something you're not. Maybe that's correct in situations like dating, but when we're speaking of nations and empires fighting for power, it may not be that stupid after all:

Haaretz has discovered why the Iranians spend a miniscule amount of money on national defense, as Barack Obama once claimed during the presidential campaign. Instead of building actual systems, they just copy photos of other nations’ weapons and claim them as their own. Tehran’s official news agency announced the release of a new drone, but it bears a very, very, very close resemblance to someone else’s — and you’ll never guess who:

Iranian state-run news agency Press TV ran a story on its website this week praising the unveiling of an Iranian-made drone, that according to the Israeli daily Maariv bears a striking resemblance to an earlier photo taken in Israel of an Israeli-made drone.

In an article run this week on the Maariv website, the photo used by Press TV of the Iranian drone is shown above a remarkably similar photo from Israel Aerospace Industries of the Heron 1 Israeli drone. The two photos appear to be exactly the same, with the angle of the shot and the clouds in the background identical in appearance.

The Iranians have photoshopped military gear before, with little to no success in fooling the West. Hey, if you're going to succeed at improving your empire status on your home computer, you need to actually tweak the image before releasing it to the public. Iran and surrounding Muslim nations are probably better off doing what they do best: outbreeding their enemies.