A Few Thoughts on the Killing of Iranian Revolutionary Guard General Qassem Soleimani

1. It seems to me that, with a proper plan and an appropriate long-term strategy, the killing of Iranian Revolutionary Guard General Qassem Soleimani could work out well for the United States and other people and countries opposed to the theocratic and totalitarian policies of Iran’s government, especially their external aspects.  Whether the Trump administration has the people to come up with such a plan and strategy and whether Donald Trump has the experience, patience, and long-term commitment to follow through on such a plan and strategy is a real question and concern.¹

2. As for the criticisms about killing, or assassinating, a general of a country with which we are not at war, I would say that what constitutes “war” is a lot different today than what it was in even the first half of the twentieth century.  General Soleimani organized a lot of attacks on United States soldiers and our friends and allies.  He seemed to think he was at war with us.  In today’s world, that may be enough.

3. As for concerns about targeting military leaders, as opposed to just killing lots of regular soldiers, I would refer to the shooting down of the plane carrying Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto in April of 1943.

4. I would be more impressed with the criticisms of the Soleimani killing by Democratic politicians, particularly those running for president, if more of them had complained about the Obama administration’s bombing of Libya in 2011 and, especially, the legal reasoning the Obama administration came up with for not complying with the War Powers Act in connection with that bombing.  Presidents before Barack Obama would comply with the War Powers Act while also saying they considered the Act to be an unconstitutional limitation on presidential powers.  President Obama, however, apparently did not want to say the War Powers Act was unconstitutional.²  Therefore, his State Department came up with the novel theory that the War Powers Act didn’t apply to our bombing of Libya because we weren’t involved in “hostilities.”  The idea was that there were no hostilities because the other side couldn’t shoot back to us when we were bombing them.³  In other words, even though we were obviously being hostile to the people we were bombing, they couldn’t be hostile back at us.
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¹ I wouldn’t have this concern if Richard Nixon was president, but then, Donald Trump is no Richard Nixon.
² Maybe because he wanted to be able to claim that it applied to his successors, even if it didn’t apply to him.
³ I realize that I have talked about this before (here and here), but it is so absurd, it needs to be remembered.