Another Grim Possibility

Was the Chinook downing in Afghanistan a piece of incredible bad luck for the forces of civilization battling the seventh century throwback Taliban or something potentially far more sinister? Did a rocket-propelled grenade turn into a magic bullet sort of one in a million shot or have some variety of shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles been supplied to Afghan insurgents by a foreign country- most probably Iran? Intelligence sources are aware of the remaining inventory of aging American-made Stinger missiles that were exchanged by the US for Lebanon-abducted American hostages back during the Oliver North, Iran-Contra era. These weapons would be obsolescent now but still plenty functional to shoot down a large relatively slow-moving helicopter, particularly if the missile avionics were given a recent tweak to overcome today's electronic countermeasures. Then there is the possibility that a nation (likely again Iran) has supplied newer Russian-manufactured SAMs or their Red-Chinese made clone shoulder-launched rockets to threaten aviation over Afghanistan. Then there may still be the old Stingers and perhaps Blowpipe anti-aircraft man-portable systems given to the mujahideen to resist the Soviets with back when the West was aligned with the indigenous resistance predecessors of the Taliban to reverse the Russian aggression that could bring down a Chinook. Is it conceivable an RPG could be the deadly culprit? Yes of course it is, but use of a more sophisticated purpose-built anti-aircraft rocket perhaps recently provided by Iran can not yet be ruled out. With Iran backing the Assad regime in Syria, with Iran destabilizing Bahrain, with Iran pushing the Islamists in Egypt, with Iranian proxy Hezbollah having subsumed Lebanon, with Iran orchestrating terror against Israel from Gaza and into the heartland of the Jewish State, with the Mullahs of Tehran soon gaining atomic weaponry, would it not be in Iran's interest to inflict carnage on the Great Satan and its allies in neighboring Afghanistan? Iran's may have bloody fingerprints all over the fallen Chinook.