Do you think Iran would have acknowledged their mistake? The US immediately did, and ended up putting their money where their mouth is by both fixing the errors that lead to this mistake and paying damages to Iran.
Looking at the details of that Korean Air flight: "the Soviet Union initially denied knowledge of the incident, but later admitted to shooting down the aircraft, claiming that it was on a MASINT spy mission." That's not the same at all. Never mind "The Soviet Union found the wreckage under the sea two weeks later on September 15 and found the flight recorders in October, but this information was kept secret by the Soviet authorities until 1992, after the country's collapse", among a lot of other lies and misinformation.
This a hugely different response. We've seen this again with Russia's shooting of MH-17. I fully believe that too was accidental, yet even for accidents you have to take responsibility. Hell, they even lied to their own people with Kursk.
Looking at the details of that Korean Air flight: "the Soviet Union initially denied knowledge of the incident, but later admitted to shooting down the aircraft, claiming that it was on a MASINT spy mission." That's not the same at all. Never mind "The Soviet Union found the wreckage under the sea two weeks later on September 15 and found the flight recorders in October, but this information was kept secret by the Soviet authorities until 1992, after the country's collapse", among a lot of other lies and misinformation.
This a hugely different response. We've seen this again with Russia's shooting of MH-17. I fully believe that too was accidental, yet even for accidents you have to take responsibility. Hell, they even lied to their own people with Kursk.