Well I'm sure Iranian military leaders are smart enough to have their own assessment of the situation.
If the systems actually shoot down a couple of F-15 or F-16 and stop this everyday Syrian airspace violation, even if Israel is pretending, is a good outcome. Because then arms flow would continue without obstacles and precious lives will be spared.
Iran should test its systems in a real scenario before it is actually forced to use it for its own airspace defense. All countries do that. If you recall, Patriot system was first tested during the first US-Iraq war fo intercepting Skud missiles. Even though its performance was comical in cases and gave away a lot of clue about how it works to US opponents, including Iran and Russia, it also gave invaluable insight to its designer about its weaknesses. As you can see, its newer versions are performing much better in Israel and KSA and it is still considered a capable weapon.
Syria is the best place for Iran to test its AA systems against one of the best air forces of the world. It could be using Kosar system to intercept their stand off weapons before they hit the target or Raad system to intercept their fighters. We have already tested our other systems there like drones, Fateh missiles and ATGMs. I don't see why we should hot test the AD systems.
1st Air Defense systems are completely different story!
2ndly we did a tech transfer of 1st gen Fatteh Missile to Syria so we can test newer versions under that cover, ATGM we are not using newer versions in Syria because the enemy there has no new advanced tanks! In Yemen they do but it's limited and the explosion is so big that nothing is left and for test models you can import the materials used to build it so there would be no proof that it was Iranian built.
Testing newer stealth Drones like the Saegheh & Simorgh UAV's in Syria or Iraq is also a mistake! I believe it was a mistake to even show them that we built them! It could have been used as a big surprise if war broke out! A very big one! I hope Iran builds a larger, faster, semiautonomous & more powerful armed version.....
Shahed-129 is a different story other than it's price tag it's nothing special compared to US or Chinese version... but if war breaks out all the communication codes will need to change and that's something Iran would of thought of before sending them there.
Iran can test it's Air Defense systems against it's own Cruise Missiles & UAV's it's capable of building! In terms of radar signature if you can pick up the Simorgh UAV on radar you should have no problem picking up the F-35... And that just leaves Jamming capability & the Aircrafts counter measures.
In terms of Jamming capability if you test your systems there it's more likely they will be able to Jam your system in the future if they can't already do so now
In terms of chaff and flairs you can install them on current Iranian UAV's and test them while the UAV makes high G turns even humans can't handle!
Iran needs to test it's own SAM under the hardest of conditions at home before testing them anywhere else
F-35 likely has Laser countermeasures to blind optically guided & IR guided missiles and even if it doesn't that's something Iran needs to be ready for! To me that means if you fired 2 missiles at an aircraft before now you fire 3 at a time!
Russians deployed the S-400 to Syria because that system was already sold to China & India and both the US & Israel know all they need to know about the radars range + the Russians likely have an upgraded version that they have not sold to or deployed to anywhere outside their own soil.
And so far to my knowledge the S-400 in Syria hasn't downed a single Aircraft and there is a reason for that! The Russians could have used it to down an Israeli UAV just to show that they can and to me it seems the Israeli's are provoking the Russians to use the S-400 so they can gather as much intel on it as they can yet the Russian reframe from using it and they have a good reason for that!
The lesson Iran needs to get is that with all the Russian SAM systems the Syrians have they couldn't stop an Israeli raid on Damascus Airport so the idea that you can replace an Air Force with a bunch of SAM systems on the ground is nothing but a delusion!
You need early warning systems, SAM's,..... AND an Air Force with Air Superiority fighters to work as a team to counter a raid and if you couldn't counter it you need to respond in kind to show the consequences of such actions!
If the Israeli's feared a retaliation of any kind they would have never taken such action! And the fact is Syria should have been better ready for a war with Israel because if they were, the Israeli would have feared a response and would have never taken such action.
