Originally Posted by
Backspin
It follows that ultimately Iran decided to take on a false accountability for two simple but compelling reasons;
1) the international institutions and Western press will not differentiate anything.
2) Western cells operating within Iran to point of bringing down Flight 752 would be a serious black eye to the domestic perception of Iranian security, weakening the regime in the public perception. Falsely swallowing responsibility is the path of least immediate damage to the Iranian governing institution, both internally and externally.
The stupidity on the Western side in this is, yeah, you hit the ayatollahs below the belt and got away with it, but you also likely convinced them there can never be a genuine détente with Western institutions, ever.
Is something like this what happened? Lots of 'smoke to clear' yet in emerging picture but the entire business just goes on smelling wrong.