Assigning Culpability on Ukraine Flight 752

Iran has admitted to mistakenly shooting down a Ukrainian passenger jet and killing 176 people.

The question now: Is this Trump’s fault?

I’d argue it is but I think it's probably best to divide this into parts. It's difficult to come up with the precise vocabulary for my position except to say that Trump is partially morally culpable but that depends on where you think the chain of events went off-track. The reason why is through an analogous scenario.

If armed bandits showed up to your house and started shooting, I think everyone would agree you'd have a right to defend yourself. If during the shoot-out, you accidently also hit a jogger that happened to be going through, I think most people would excuse that as a tragic accident (unless you were being extremely reckless) and lay the blame at the bandits because they were in the wrong for initiating this conflict. Let's change a few facts about the scenario. It's not armed bandits but the local police department, and it's not your house but a warehouse you escaped to following an armed robbery. I think in this case almost everyone would agree you don't have a valid right to defend yourself, and if you compound that trespass by also killing an innocent bystander in the process then you done really fucked up.

So applying to Iran, whether or not they are morally culpable depends on whether their reaction is reasonable and well-founded. Was it justified to assassinate Soleimani? If yes, then Iran has no right to retaliate. If no, then it's reasonable for Iran to retaliate against a clearly hostile foreign power stationed nearby. If it's reasonable to retaliate, then it's understandable that some bystanders would be unintentionally killed given the scale of the conflict. Mistaking a radar blip for a cruise missile during a clearly tense situation seems like a reasonable mistake. Just like the armed bandits example, the blame would lay at the feet of whoever initiated the unjustified conflict.

Additional context to this scenario may stretch the analogy perhaps past the point of discomfort, but you'd have to mention that the armed bandits have previously engaged in destructive hostilities to take over your neighbor's homes and have succeeded in at least partially occupying the properties to this day. You also have to mention that the bandits have snipers stationed across the street dangerously close to your property line with the capacity of precise and devastating accuracy. You also have to mention that several years ago, the bandits blew up a car leaving your property and refused to admit guilt or apologize. You then have to go further in time and talk about how the bandits previously targeted your grandfather and even successfully managed to kick him out as the head of household to install his more amenable cousin as a capo. On and on.