Plane disaster throws wrench into the Trump's 'stand-down' narrative
A man places flowers Wednesday at a memorial at a Ukrainian airport for the victims of the Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 crash in Iran. Credit: AFP via Getty Images/Sergei Supinsky
This has been an especially bad week for the presumption of competence by governments and militaries, domestic and foreign.
The Ukraine airliner apparently downed by an Iran missile near Tehran "was flying in a pretty rough neighborhood,” President Donald Trump said Thursday.
“Someone could have made a mistake.”
“I have a feeling that — it’s just some very terrible, something very terrible happened, very devastating."
Clearly true.
Spy satellite imagery suggests the Boeing airliner headed to Ukraine was shot down by Iran five minutes after takeoff Wednesday, killing all 176 on board.
A sudden cutoff of communication before the crash reinforced suspicions. Iran gave no indication it would share forensic information. But the attack has been linked to two of its Russian-made surface-to-air missiles.
The dead from Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 include 82 Iranians, 63 Canadians, 11 Ukrainians, 10 Swedes, four Afghans, three Germans and three British nationals, Ukraine's foreign minister said.
The disaster occurred hours after Iran struck U.S. positions in Iraq in retaliation for the U.S. killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani.
Timing is always crucial.
Say news of the cause of the airliner crash had spread 24 hours earlier. This might have marred the president's reassurance that Iran was "standing down" after an attack on an American air base in Iraq caused no casualties.
A mistake involving the airliner seems plausible.
Many recalled Thursday how Iran Air Flight 655, bound for Dubai from Tehran, was shot down over the Persian Gulf in 1988 by a missile fired from the USS Vincennes.
President Ronald Reagan later issued a letter of regret to the Iranian government.
Earlier this week came a massive dose of confusion on the American side that remains largely unexplained.
First Iraq's parliament voted for U.S. troops to end their presence in the country under the aegis of fighting ISIS.
Then a letter from U.S. Marine Brig. Gen. William Seely to Baghdad officials leaked out. In it, Seely said he'd be “repositioning forces … in the coming days and weeks to prepare for onward movement.”
“We respect your sovereign decision to order our departure."
But the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, told reporters the letter was a draft, sent by mistake, and that troops weren't leaving.
Trump detractors often call the president's competence into question.
The rush of events when tensions escalate, however, creates opportunities for big screw-ups, regardless of who's in charge of which government.
Plans are one thing, realities another. When will the next lethal mistake occur?
Dan Janison is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
