Again, this is bad because this is a bad command decision, not because it was Hawk v F-22 or F-22 vs F-4.
In case the entire MQ-1 plot is lost on you, The MQ-1/F-22 Chaser combo is to monitor and test Iranian GDS reaction, they are staying out of Iranian airspace and see how long or from where the interception will be. MQ-1 don't have sophisticated EW suite (It's too small for it), if this is a EW op, they would have flew the RC-135 or RC-130, so staying out over 12 nm of Iranian Territorial water is pointless for it, because they can see nothing and like one of those CCTV camera you saw in anywhere, they are monitoring the space and WAITING on something to happen. And that something is for Iran to detect them, and then intercept them.
Why? Because you can plot a radar interception path because they will know where suspected radar site will be, and when they detected it, they know where the interception is coming from, which mean the US will know the entire chain of interception when they did it. And that's WAY MORE important than knowing what Iranian radar can do, because you know the reaction time, approximate location of the radar, the command structure.
And the failure here is Iran being drawn to the bait unprepared. I mean first of all, anything flying single is very suspicious. And the fact that you flew 2 F-4 into the fray without knowing there is a tracker on the drone, that's alarming, because you let yourself getting into an disadvantage position. And tactically, if Iran were to set up the ships to check out the contact, they should have either 4 ships with 2 up front making contact and 2 staying behind out of sight, or if you send a 2 ship formation, you should have 1 up front and 1 staying behind, not both. Unless Iran deliberately want to show the US they are an idiot, this is both a tactical and operational mistake made by Iran.
The issue here is, yes, Iranian ADS probably did improve since 2013, but then there are 2 things you did not count on.
1.) US tactics/technologies would most likely also improve.
2.) There are no perfect defence in the world, I would say even NORAD can be penetrated if someone have the know how
Which mean at the end of the day, you can have the best Anti-Air Equipment in the world. It will all ended up counting to the person or people who operate it, and if Iran did not learn the 2013 lesson and chalk it off to "well, we don't have X,Y,Z back then" like you are saying here, then you will see another version of 2013 interception happen and you will again put yourself in the disadvantages.
And that is setting aside whether Iran do have the ability to look for US Stealth aircraft to begin with, which if it were to believe, only selected few countries have the capability to do that, EU, China, or even Russia (which is a strong maybe) and I seriously doubt Iran have enough technology-wise to detect and separate stealth.
