imo if you are viewing things at the level of conflicts between nation states you aren't getting the whole picture, you have to look at how a given event or process influences the system.  to me it looks like this is part of a much bigger process centered around removing us from its role of hegemon through a death-by-thousand-cuts strategy. if this is the case, then it's just as likely that us-based/us-allied actors are behind this particular storm as it is china, iran or russia there are different factions and it seems like one faction is trying to cause chaos in order to provoke the other faction or weaken its position. false flags and infrastructure attacks are two other things you would expect to see if this is the case.
United States