Would the incident aboard Wednesday night's United Airline flight from Washington DC to Denver have been handled differently if the young diplomat had been from the German Embassy?

Mohammed al-Madadi, a young diplomat from Qatar, caused an international incident; NORAD scrambled fighters and the president was briefed after Al-Madadi was caught smoking [rumor has it toking] in the airplane toilet and jokingly said when confronted that he was trying to light his shoes. A federal law enforcement official said Madadi may have put out the smoking materials on his shoe and made the joking remark when confronted.
This caused a national security incident. How much of that was due to profiling?