Trying to Make Sense of it All

     On January 3rd, Qasem Soleimani was assassinated in a drone attack by the US while the Iranian general was in Iraq. Immediately, the world feared that war was imminent. People believed that the assassination of a man responsible for countless deaths himself was a good thing or they believed it to be an abhorrent act a global leader, such as the US, should never have even considered. There was very little in between.
     The Persians vowed revenge and retaliation stating that the US had made a grave error. Our President said if there were any retaliation, the US response would be overwhelming and vowed to hit 51 cultural sites in Iran; one for each of the hostages taken in the 1979 takeover of the US Embassy by the Iranians. Again, there was no middle ground in people’s reaction. People here were either totally against the even the suggestion of targeting cultural sites which is against the international rules of war. Others wished we would have just attacked those sites back in 1979. The next day the Pentagon said we would never target cultural sites and Trump was thereafter silent on the matter.
     People were defriending each other on social media over their hawkish or dovish perspectives on the assassination, the potential war, or Trump. And we waited. We waited to see what Iran’s retaliation was going to be. It came on January 7th. Iran launched a dozen missiles at two US military bases. Momentarily, there weren’t two sides. Everyone knew it was coming and everyone’s spirits sunk as it seemed a long, costly, and ugly war was about to begin.
     Shortly after reports of the missile attacks were all over social media, there was a report of a Ukrainian plane crash in Iran. The Persians immediately reported it was a mechanical malfunction. It did not take much longer for the US and others to report that there was evidence that the plane was shot down by an Iranian missile. Things were looking very dismal indeed. If a plane is shot down by a missile, debris is scattered for miles whereas if a plane crashes due to mechanical failure, the debris is contained in a much smaller area. In this case the debris was cast over a large swath of land.
     Then, the next day, war began to look a lot less imminent. The report of the Iranian attacks on the US bases were that there was very little damage and no causalities. I thought “hmmm.” Was it just one of those cases where it was retaliation for show with no intent to harm? Was it one of those cases, where there was a courtesy call or text sent to us to inform us of an impending attack?
     Things got even more curious when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada made a statement about the Ukrainian jet incident as 63 of the 167 passengers, none of which survived, were Canadian citizens or residents all of Persian descent. He said there was strong evidence that the jet was downed by a missile and then added it may have been done in error. Later, I heard a clip of President Trump giving the exact same message. Yesterday, the Iranians admitted that, yes, they had mistakenly and sadly shot down the Ukrainian jet.
      For all the saber rattling and being at the edge of what promised to be a horrific and costly war, tensions had eased lot. Golly, gee whiz, we basically forgave the Iranians for errant downing the Ukrainian passenger jet before they even fessed up. How and why did we become so thoughtful in their regard?
     I don’t know about fake news in this case, but I feel like we are not getting the full story. It is more like manipulative news by omission. It seems to me there has been a lot of talking behind the scene as some of this seems very orchestrated. 

     On one extreme, it may be all coincidental. I really doubt this to be the case.  On the other hand, maybe there was a huge conspiracy between Iran and the US to get to some kind of detente. My out-there theory works as follows.  First, they had to get rid of Soleimani. The US would take him out. Iran would huff and puff and then fire missiles at two bases with forewarning so the missiles would just thud into the desert killing no one and damaging nothing. The Ukrainian jet liner? Unplanned, an unfortunate consequence that can easily happen in the fog of military operations.  It was truly unfortunate but deftly handled by Trudeau, Trump, and the Iranians.
     Why might the Iranians want to get rid of Soleimani? They are a one-party government that needs the support of the people in order to hold power. The US sanctions are hurting their economy and eroding the support of the populace. Probably the leadership, except for Soleimani the hardline regional organizer and supporter of fundamentalists and terrorists, were leaning for dialogue with the US. Thus, Soleimani had to go.
     In this continually evolving story, there are protests in Iran over the Revolutionary Guard admitting they downed the Ukrainian jet. Also, the leader of Hezbollah, warned that the ineffective missile attack against the US bases were just the first many that he threatened to inflict on US forces in the Middle East. I can spin these two items to support my theory or to debunk it. That is how unsure I am.
     Ok. As a child of the conspiracy theory laden 60s and 70s, I am probably way off here. But there is something odd about how this whole thing has unfolded. We are all missing a puzzle piece or three that would allow us to make sense of all of this. I am trying to make sense of all this... and not doing very well at it.