You could also argue that the earth is flat and lots of people do.

No one can rationally argue that that was partly the US' responsibility, though.

Not very seriously.

The Iranians shot down a Ukrainian jet with Russian missile. Blaming Americans for the stupidity of Iranians is ridiculous.

Maybe not entirely seriously, but there is a direct causative path initiated by the United States that you can follow which lead to this result.

Iran shot down this airliner after mistaking it for a cruise missile launched by the US, which was arguably a credible fear given the events of days prior. If the US didn't assassinate Qasem Soleimani (with a drone, near an airport), Iran wouldn't have made this terrible error, as they would not have made a retaliatory strike.

Additionally, you can go even further back and argue that if the US didn't withdraw from the nuclear deal struck in 2015, none of these events would have taken place.

There’s a direct causal path from any event to every event in its future light cone. You need more than “if not X then not Y” to blame Y on X. Otherwise you end up with ridiculous things like saying your cat saved your life by barfing on the carpet because cleaning it up made you late for your bus which crashed.

You can also argue if Iran did not have imperialist project over neighboring countries this event would've also not happened.

That's not a counter to the parent's point. The parent is saying there are many critical factors, one of which was the US performing an assassination.

Saying "there were other critical factors" both agrees with the parent post and doesn't counter the idea that the US was a factor.

This is absolutely a counter. There would be no assassination of an Iranian general in Baghdad had he not commanded the insurgency with the sponsored militias in Iraq.

That sounds like "another critical factor". A chain of events led to this. The parent is saying "one link in the chain is US involvement", you are saying, a different link in the chain is Iranian involvement. Both can be true, and neither invalidates the other. You've done nothing to invalidate the parent's post because you haven't removed their link from the chain, you've just added other salient links to the chain.

Stop treating blame like it's some simple, single element. It's a complicated, multi faceted chain of events.

> Maybe not entirely seriously, but there is a direct causative path initiated by the United States that you can follow which lead to this result.

No, there isn't. There's a direct causative path initiated by Xerxes I when he launched the second invasion of Greece.

Using this line of reasoning, you might as well go back to Cain and Able.

If country a starts a war and then country b defending itself accidentally shoots down a civilian airliner it’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous. You’re saying it’s completely ridiculous to blame country a?

Yes. We rightfully expect people with guns to have an idea of what they are shooting at. Firing wildly at anything that moves tends to earn condemnation.

If you qualify country A's actions as "starting a war" then country B had started many dozens of wars themselves in the previous decade, and subsequent one.

Irrelevant. You may as well walk back to the first mover and blame God.

That's basically my point. Ultimate responsibility lies with those who decided to fire a missile at a civilian airliner without doing any due diligence or applying common sense, not those who "created tension" or whatever you want to claim the US did in that situation.

If the iron dome accidentally shoots down in civilian airliner it’s ‘ridiculous’ to blame anyone other than Israel was your statement

I was assuming you were referring to the Ukrainian airliner shot down by Iran in the aftermath of the Suliemani killing, which is an actual example and not a hypothetical one.

It is. It's ridiculous when Israel hits aid workers with missiles and rockets, it's crazy when people wearing press jackets are killed even after communicating their position directly to military command and control. It's ridiculous when children die early, gruesome deaths because they sat next to a bad man with a pager at a Lebanese grocery store.

It's not the 1950s anymore, accountable nations are expected on the international stage to understand what exactly they are shooting at. Israel is under much closer scrutiny than Russia because they represent modernized doctrine and should be using their technological superiority to enable more targeted strikes rather than more indiscriminate ones. Modern Russian warfighting tactics have been under serious scrutiny since the Afghan retreat, then again in the Gulf War, and then again now during the retreat from Syria.

The only "clean" war Russia fought in recent years was Crimea, which was "won" by lying to the international community and breaking their trust forever. As evidenced by Ukraine, today's Russian republic cannot win a war with tactical prowess alone. The "special military operation" has devolved into IRBM fearmongering and rattling the nuclear sabre - Putin knows he's not the president of a world superpower anymore, he's a Tesco-branded Kim Jong-Un.

Except...the US isn't partly responsible.