[Red Badger]

The planes could,assuming it's true ( it is Debka, after all), fly way south of Iran across the Arabian Sea over Yemen and be out of reach for Iran................

[GonzoGOP]

The planes could,assuming it's true ( it is Debka, after all), fly way south of Iran across the Arabian Sea.

Wrong. The entire Pakistani coast line is within range of Iran's F-14s. The Tomcats have an intercept range of 926km (500nm). Sacrifice some weapons load (your killing unarmed transports after all) for extra tanks and you can almost double that. So they would have to fly quite a long distance within range of Iran's fighters in order to get to clear air. Unless they fly over India, and there is no way in heck India is going to let a bunch of nuke toting Pakistani aircraft fly anyplace near their territory.

Now making the intercept without AWACS won't be easy. But it is a risk. And as a general principle the Saudis doesn't take risks when they don't have to.