No, my dude, we do not. But this issue seems to be where the men are being separated from the boys within Team Anti-Trump. If you’re a Democrat or a hard-hard-hardcore Never Trumper then the opportunity to splash some of the blood from the crash onto Trump’s hands is irresistible. It’s not just the Iranian missile that killed those innocents, it was our provocation.

Whereas if you’re a Trump fan or a critic whose disdain for the president doesn’t quite color every inch of your politics, the response is: What are you talking about, man? How was the jet caught in “the middle” when only one side was shooting into the air?

Pete Buttigieg isn’t just a Democrat, he’s a would-be Democratic nominee for president, so he’s splashing around in the blood.

Innocent civilians are now dead because they were caught in the middle of an unnecessary and unwanted military tit for tat.

My thoughts are with the families and loved ones of all 176 souls lost aboard this flight. https://t.co/zWaVgWxfdL

— Pete Buttigieg (@PeteButtigieg) January 9, 2020

Lots of other examples of rhetoric like that are floating around today. Twitter pal “neontaster” has compiled a few in this thread, noting the prevalence of the term “crossfire” to describe what happened. It’s the first time I’ve heard of crossfire when the fire that night came entirely from one direction.

https://twitter.com/Susan_Hennessey/status/1215364827599790082

With so many missiles flying out of Iran that night, this comes as no surprise. Look at who got caught up in the crossfire of revenge. What a horror and a shame. https://t.co/9REwW7Hehw

— Sig Christenson 🏕 (@saddamscribe) January 9, 2020

These are images that really tell a story. Of our children caught in the crossfire of conflicts they inherit from us! https://t.co/JAPDYCfKpr

— George Koshy (@georgekoshy) January 9, 2020

Crossfire. pic.twitter.com/VufSLkLrkh

— neontaster (@neontaster) January 9, 2020

The idea behind “crossfire” (or the jet being “caught in the middle,” per Buttigieg) is that the U.S. supposedly initiated the chain of events that led to the jet being shot down by taking out Qassem Soleimani. But Soleimani’s targeting was a response to rocket attacks on American bases by Iranian proxies and the assault on the American embassy in Baghdad last last month. What should we have done to answer those provocations in order to avoid sharing the blame for innocents killed by Iran in their counter-response? Would any answer have been too much?

Would this count as crossfire too, asks neontaster?

So if Iran sends a suicide bomber to a US embassy and the explosion kills a bunch of kids, is that also partly our fault because the bombing was a "retaliation"? Give me a break.

— Noam Blum (@neontaster) January 9, 2020

The irony of the Iranian missile attack on Tuesday night is that not only wasn’t the U.S. shooting at the time, it declined to shoot back afterward. By targeting Soleimani and his retinue directly rather than ordering broader operations against Iranian proxies or Iranian forces, Trump limited the risk of wider conflict that would have involved actual crossfire. Blaming him for Iranian negligence in operating their own missile defense system is pure point-scoring.

Even Tom Nichols, normally a pretty hardcore anti-Trumper, can’t stomach it this time:

This isn't what happened. The Iranians knew they were about to proceed with a complicated military operation. The airport shouldn't even have been open. This is not "caught in the middle" of anything, it's a screw up by the Iranians. https://t.co/nqKD5hGY9n

— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) January 9, 2020

Right. Why was Tehran’s airport open on a night when they knew they were planning to fire missiles at American forces? The answer, seemingly, is that they didn’t want to forfeit the element of surprise by grounding flights ahead of an attack, never mind that there wasn’t much element of surprise regardless. But then, having assumed that risk, they somehow neglected to account for the presence of passenger flights overhead in operating their missile defense system. This wasn’t just a one-sided “crossfire,” it was an example of Iran not knowing how to use its own “gun.” Says Rich Lowry, “Is the new standard really that a president of the United States can’t defend against attacks on U.S. personnel by a terror regime because the regime might accidentally shoot down an airliner taking off from one of its own airports?”

Keep an eye on this resolution introduced by Ted Cruz, which would in part “commend” Trump for taking out Soleimani. Cruz knows how eager Democrats are to frame this past week as a reckless failure of leadership instead of what it appears to be for the moment, a great success. He’s going to dare the “crossfire” contingent in the Democratic caucus to cast a disapproving vote.

JUST INTRODUCED w 42 fellow GOP senators resolution to honor members of military & intel community who carried out mission to take out Soleimani, a terrorist responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people across the Middle East, including 603 US service members. pic.twitter.com/1XNgXHFO3z

— Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) January 9, 2020

Here’s video of the missile strike on the jet.

Update: Democrats are really working hard to one-up each other on how far they’ll go to blame Trump for this.

.@RepSpeier tells @wolfblitzer if Iran did shoot down the Ukrainian Airlines plane, "This is yet another example of collateral damage from the actions that have been taken in a provocative way by the President of the United States." Wow.

— Josh Rogin (@joshrogin) January 9, 2020

Again: What sort of U.S. response to the rocket attacks and embassy assault would have been sufficiently “un-provocative” to Speier that the U.S. wouldn’t be on the hook morally for Iran’s clusterfark with the jet? Is there anything?