Yes, I can imagine, I don’t want to ruin the surprise. The election of Trump was a permanent and catastrophic mistake.
Personally I don’t think that a Trump will be re-elected in the future. I do think that politics in this country is broken forever. It doesn’t matter if the Trumps get elected in the future or not, they’ll be potent spoilers and gadflies and generally tendentious shitbirds for the rest of our natural lives, just noisy turds circling the bowl like Sarah Palin did for years until she eventually quit for God only knows what self-serving reasons. We’re stuck with them.
IIRC Iranians have strategized and conspired for a few millennia. They’ve practiced at this stuff. Don’t think they aren’t tricky.
Some time in the not-too-immediate future, a ship that was never near the MidEast picks up a bland cargo container at some boring quay, steams into a major US port, and the well-shielded nuke inside goes ka-boom. Who did it? Who to target? How to tell whether the components came from an alleged perpetrator, or were false-flagged? What a pickle!
And what would Iran get out of this anonymous attack?
Oh, I’ve seen Aladdin, I know how tricky they can be!
May I remind you that the current tensions started when America’s president assassinated an Iranian general with very no authorization from Congress?
I can’t make any sense of what is going on with Iran. There is now a report that Iran may have been responsible for shooting down a Ukranian passenger jet. If The Ukraine is an ally of Russia or part of Russia, how could that be a swipe at the USA?
Here is a link to that report.
Did you read the article you yourself linked to?
No one’s claiming Iran did it on purpose.
I did see they said Iran may have shot it down by mistake. But it wasn’t clear to me just how likely it was that it was a mistake.
I’m having difficulty trying to understand just what is going on.
But I thank you for your reply.
The Iranians see a large radar return, and they believe the USA is retaliating for their attack on a base that housed US Army personnel. So they fired on the airplane, believing it was a US attack aircraft targeting them.
Hell, it might not even be that intentional.
The air defense missile battery is running weapons-free and war-hot, but the final decision to fire is in the hands of the operator. Meanwhile the system is tracking everything in the air.
Then the operator accidentally triggers a lock-and-fire sequence at the system’s current target. 176 people die.
I don’t know the UX design in Russian air defense systems, but it wouldn’t surprise me if there were a stable state in which the system is ready to execute, and all that’s needed is a single operator action.
My DVR has a delete button, asks me to verify “Y/N”, then asks me, “Are you sure?”
“Are you SURE you want to launch?”
The working assumption will be that it came either from North Korea, or Iran. So they will be guilty until proven innocent. Also read what scr4 says.
Regards,
Shodan
Fabulous, but not relevant. This is weapons design, not consumer electronics.
I know of no example in which a weapon system second-guesses a fire decision, after safeties are cleared. Even the most sophisticated handgun safety I know of is the one which is released at the same time and by the same act as the trigger (e.g., grip safety released by the same hand squeeze action as pulling the trigger).
Humor; it is a difficult concept. 
I believe they can tell from the radioactive material where it originated. Then you make a list of who makes weapons from that particular radioactive material. It narrows it down. I imagine they perpetrators can’t help bragging about it.