I wouldn't necessarily buy that the Iranians didn't shoot it down. As the War Nerd quibbed about the downed F15E in Libya:

If [the DoD] had their way there'd be no aces in the history of air combat. Baron von Richthofen would just be this German guy who happened to be around a lot of the time when "equipment malfunctions" happened. But it's funny how those malfunctions seem to happen in places where the skies are full of those cool tracer tracks,

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.