WASHINGTON, DC—Does Donald Trump’s response to Iran change, now that we know its missiles likely killed 176 people, including 63 Canadians?

Some experts who spoke to the Toronto Star say probably not.

“I don’t think it’s going to have a major impact in changing the basic calculus of both Trump and the supreme leader,” says Aaron David Miller, an expert on the Middle East and U.S. Foreign Policy at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Some Canadians might have hoped it would, especially as the stories of the civilians who died roll in, and the shock of the news that it was likely caused — “perhaps unintentionally,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Thursday — by a surface-to-air missile.

A day earlier when Trump announced what amounted to a military de-escalation with Iran, it appeared that the death toll of the standoff between the two countries would be no more than the handful of people directly targeted by the U.S. No Americans or Iraqis were killed by Tuesday’s Iranian missile strikes on Iraq bases where U.S. and its allies were housed. The crash of the Ukrainian jet was not clearly linked to the standoff between the two nations.

But that changed when Trudeau became the first world leader to publicly acknowledge that intelligence reports suggest Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 was hit by an Iranian missile.

Tom Karako, who heads the missile defence project for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says the U.S. approach likely won’t be changed by the latest intelligence.

“From a policy perspective, I don’t think you’re gonna see a big change on the part of the United States, because although this is a tragedy, it’s not something that could or I think should disrupt the relationship between the United States and Iran. It’s a tragic situation,” he said, “I think it would be another tragedy if the United States were to, you know, ramp things up just as they’re cooling off.”

It appears most likely to Karako that this was accidental in some way, either due to technological limitations or factors stemming from being on a heightened state of alert as Iran had just attacked the U.S. military.

Miller, who worked for the U.S. State Department on Middle Eastern issues between 1978 and 2003, says that rather than leading to any immediate military escalation, the Americans can use it to bolster their own political narrative.

“I think this will play to what I guess the Pentagon would call the ‘psy-ops,’ psychological warfare, component of what is going to be an intensely competitive, combustible U.S.-Iranian relationship,” Miller said. “But it’s largely in the political, PR domain.”

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“It’s simply going to put additional pressure on the Iranians, who unless they fess up very quickly, are going to play into the hands of anyone who was prepared to basically say, ‘You see?’ Which is where the administration will likely go with it. ‘This is a lying, perfidious regime who, you know, claims great competency in shooting ballistic missiles at American forces in Iraq and yet demonstrates callous disregard for civilian life.’ That’s the way it’s going to be pitched. And they won’t necessarily be wrong.”

Karako also stressed that there’s a strong onus on Iran now to admit to what it knows about the situation and make amends.

“I would point to the fact when the United States accidentally shot down an Iranian jetliner 1980s, at a state of heightened tension between the two countries, the United States acknowledged it, fessed up and then paid compensation to the victims,” Karako said.

“The Iranian leaders, the foreign minister and the Ayatollah, what have they been doing the past couple days? They’ve been quoting the UN Charter and talking all this language about proportionality and taking on the trappings of being a normal nation. Well, if they want to be a normal nation, now would be a good time to take responsibility for their actions. And to acknowledge what happened, explain what happened, turn over the black boxes, and then frankly compensate the victims.”

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