The main impact of news that Iran accidentally shot down the plane will, sadly enough, be political. It will reduce the sympathy factor for the ayatollahs and allow people to imagine, vicariously, what it must be like to have EFP fragments coming through the vehicle side.
Soleimani killed thousands upon thousands. But secret war is never real until you put a face to them. Going back to 1979 there are a multitude of faces.
This was the man, this was the regime who no one was supposed to anger lest they turn their baleful glare on us instead of passing by to kill someone else. Let it be someone else, dear Gaia, just not me.
But the trouble with our wonderful globalized world is that we have to room with the monsters. Iran, the Kingdom, China. We really ought to feel sorry for ourselves if it would do any good. But it won't so the goal is to survive until tomorrow.
We can accomodate this regime, or defeat it, or bow to it as Congress in its war power sees fit. That at least has meaning, a semantic value. What is uniquely valueless is imposing some legalistic restriction with no underlying purpose or aim on something once secret, now open.
