PS752: Cue Iran's "sincere apology"

Here's the headline Walt expected: "US officials say 'highly likely' Iranian missile brought down Ukrainian airliner". Lifetime pct .983.

The rest of the story, so far (the news is breaking just now) is that American satellites detected the launch of two missiles shortly before the Ukrainian International Airlines B737-800, operating flight PS752 from Tehran to Kyiv, crashed shortly after takeoff.

Reuters and The Associated Press both report that US officials say they believe the shooting down of the aircraft was "accidental". When Still-President Trump was asked about the crash at a presser a few minutes ago, he told reporters he had a terrible feeling about the downed airliner but offered no additional details. "Somebody could have made a mistake," he told reporters at the White House. "I have my suspicions."

As to the consequences, Walt's prediction is that there will be no retaliation by the USA, Ukraine, or anyone else. The government of Iran will express its "sincere regret" about the "incident", and will pay millions of petrodollars in compensation to the families of those killed. That will suffice for the US government, since doing anything else -- shooting down an Iranian airliner, for instance -- would provoke a war which, in truth, the Americans do not want.

There is a precedent for my prediction -- the case of Korean Airlines flight 007, which was shot down on 1 September 1983 by a Soviet Su-15 interceptor while en route from Anchorage to Seoul. The B747 deviated from its original planned route and flew through Soviet prohibited airspace. The Soviet Air Forces treated the unidentified aircraft as an intruding American spy plane, and destroyed it with air-to-air missiles, not accidentally but deliberately. All 269 passengers and crew aboard were killed.