No, it's not.

Please read articles before commenting.

To be fair, the headline is somewhat inflammatory, if subtly so. The phrase "selling nuclear technology to X", where X is {Iran, China, Cuba, Russia, North Korea}, tends to elicit a defensive response in Americans.

The contents of the article, of course, show this response to be incorrect here. I imagine the title was picked because of the response it would generate. It's catchy.

While true, I don't consider it a defense for bad commenting. I would consider actually reading the article before commenting to be a basic requirement of participation on HN. (Within reason; occasionally, entire books or a semester of lectures are linked.)

Ok, point taken. For instance, when somebody wastes everbody's time picking nits about oh, a comment about a bad title, I'll downvote them and post followon comments backpedaling and deliberately not getting the point.