The US air strike on an Iranian general in Baghdad is sending shock waves around the world. While it’s difficult to grasp just how serious this is, some idea can be gained by a better understanding of who the target was. From the BBC link above:
Iran's most powerful military commander, General Qasem Soleimani, has been killed by a US air strike in Iraq.
The 62-year-old spearheaded Iranian military operations in the Middle East as head of Iran's elite Quds Force.
...Under his leadership, Iran had bolstered Hezbollah in Lebanon and other pro-Iranian militant groups, expanded its military presence in Iraq and Syria and orchestrated Syria's offensive against rebel groups in the country's long civil war.
...Soleimani was widely seen as the second most powerful figure in Iran, behind the Ayatollah Khamenei. His Quds Force, an elite unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, reported directly to the ayatollah and he was hailed as a heroic national figure.
This is roughly comparable to Iran taking out the Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, or the head of the CIA. This started with an attack on a military base in Iraq that killed a U.S. contractor which was answered with multiple air strikes that killed several dozen people which led to the US Embassy being attacked by angry Iraqis, which was answered with sending more troops and now this latest air strike… well here we are. This is effectively an assassination.
Assassination has long been a staple tool for those engaged in conflict, whether governments, political/religious movements, or criminal gangs. (It’s an American tradition.) The phrase “cloak and dagger” has many associations, but the relevant one here is of murder carried out under concealment, without warning — the dagger hidden under the cloak. It’s another name for what is also called a sneak attack.
The US has been doing this ever since it developed drone warfare as a response to asymmetric warfare, using its technological edge to strike targets without warning. That’s the other side of the asymmetry, the answer to how do you fight an enemy where there are no front lines, no government to declare war on, no national boundaries?
Soleimani was taken out with a drone strike.
Soleimani and officials from Iran-backed militias were leaving Baghdad airport in two cars when they were hit by a US drone strike near a cargo area.
The commander had reportedly flown in from Lebanon or Syria. Several missiles struck the convoy and at least seven people are believed to have died.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards said Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis was among those killed.
Muhandis commanded the Iranian-backed Kataib Hezbollah group, which Washington blamed for a rocket attack which killed a US civilian contractor in northern Iraq last Friday.
The US is big on expensive, high-tech use of force — but others make use of more subtle approaches.
The assassination attempts in 2015 were remarkable not only for their brazenness and persistence, but also because security and intelligence officials in the West initially did not notice. Bulgarian prosecutors looked at the case, failed to unearth any evidence and closed it.
Now Western security and intelligence officials say the Bulgaria poisonings were a critical clue that helped expose a campaign by the Kremlin and its sprawling web of intelligence operatives to eliminate Russia’s enemies abroad and destabilize the West.
...In October, The New York Times revealed that a specialized group of Russian intelligence operatives — Unit 29155 — had for years been assigned to carry out killings and political disruption campaigns in Europe. Intelligence and security officials say the unit is responsible for the assassination attempt last year against Sergei V. Skripal, a Russian former spy in Britain; a failed operation in 2016 to provoke a military coup in Montenegro; and a campaign to destabilize Moldova.
Assassination is cheaper than fielding armed troops or flying bombing missions; you can do it without openly declaring war, or even being noticed doing it if you are careful enough. While Russia is rattling high-tech military threats, old school cloak and dagger can be even more effective.
But Trump is anything but careful. Call it the Cohn doctrine:
Roy Cohn taught young Donald Trump two simple precepts: Always hit back. Never apologize.
Trump has taken it farther in his usual over the top style.
When someone attacks me, I always attack back...except 100x more. This has nothing to do with a tirade but rather, a way of life!
As a war leader, Donald Trump has, as we say, issues.
“...The generals, all of whom have led troops in combat, know better than most the war is hard and ugly, but their understanding of ‘toughness’ goes well beyond the gruff stoicism of a John Wayne movie. Good judgment counts more than toughness.”
But not for Trump. Instead, he revels in indiscriminately murderous and sadistic notions of martial manhood divorced from consequence, military discipline, or the constraints of the Geneva Convention.
A second aspect of assassination is this: it’s a form of terrorism. The attack on Solemani sends a message: if the US thinks you are an enemy or if killing you will advance US interests, consider yourself a target. You won’t know where or when — but you will never be able to relax for a moment.
The collateral damage the comes with drone strikes is a feature, not a bug. Attacks that kill those around the person of interest also send a message. If you hang out with America’s enemies and support them, there will be consequences. Both sides in asymmetric warfare end up using the terror from each other’s attacks and methods to justify more of the same.
The third aspect of assassination via drone strike is that it’s tempting — no troops are put directly at risk. At most a drone might be lost. It’s politically more acceptable than committing troops to a conflict, easier than trying to impose effective sanctions, and a way of putting pressure on enemies to seek diplomatic remedies. President Obama made extensive use of drones during his presidency, even as he was trying to draw down troops and end conflicts.
The morality of drone strikes is problematic. Matt Peterson explored the ethics of it in The Atlantic.
...But is Obama’s drone war moral?
There are two parts to this question: First, can targeted killings outside of conflict zones ever be justified? Second, is the structure that Obama has put in place over the years actually upholding those standards? The answer to the first question, according to philosophers of war, is yes, and the standards for “moral” killing allow for more civilian casualties than one might expect. The answer to the second question is harder. The intense secrecy surrounding the program not only makes it difficult for outsiders to assess the morality of targeted killings, it means the government is failing to uphold its basic moral duties to the public and the people it is targeting.
...The standards Obama articulated track reasonably well with the traditional requirements laid out by moral philosophers for carrying out violence in self-defense. To be morally justified, defensive killing must be necessary, meaning only people who pose serious threats can be targeted, and taking a life (as opposed to arresting the threatening party) must be the only possible means to end those threats. The defender must strictly distinguish between combatants and innocent bystanders, intentionally targeting only combatants, and must keep any damage to those bystanders in careful proportion to the initial threat.
emphasis added
There is no evidence Donald J. Trump has ever been bothered by moral constraints or good judgement. If he has had any problems with Russian assassination teams roaming Europe, it’s not been apparent. Neither has his response to the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman shown any great concern on his part.
Like it or not, assassination via drone is not going to go away. It’s just too useful. The task is going to be keeping it and other methods within justifiable bounds and calibrating the cost. The blow back from Trump’s latest move is unknown, but there’s a reason this is a news story: Franz Ferdinand and #WWIII: Why are these words trending?
Many years ago I read a short story by Poul Anderson, IIRC. I can’t remember the title now, but it was typical Cold War era science fiction. The setting was an upcoming election in a future version of the USA and the protagonist was a government agent whose job was to provide security for American candidates in a world where assassination had become an open tool of regime change by hostile actors. (A game all sides were playing.)
He was aware of intelligence warning of a possible attack, but did not have any specifics on the target. The story turned on what happened; he put several things together and was able to stop the killing of a man who was not a candidate at all, or even particularly important — yet. He was a relatively young academic who had just published a paper on the role of assassination and how it might evolve.
What the agent stopped was a pre-emptive assassination. The target had been identified as potentially becoming a serious intellectual asset for America as his career developed. The enemy agent (from China IIRC) was engaged in a program to remove the intellectual capital the US would need in the years ahead, and do it before they became too prominent for it to go unnoticed. The story closed on an anguished realization of what the years ahead were going to be like with that new doctrine in effect. Genies just don’t like to go back into bottles.
At this moment, it would not be credible to discount the existence of lists around the world of people whose removal various governments believe would be in their interests. The scenario Anderson came up with is not a stretch with those lists for a starting point.
In any case, however you may feel about the uses of assassination, there is no reason to trust Donald Trump to do anything but abuse and misuse it like all the other powers of his office. He allegedly did not consult with Congress at all on what was a direct attack on a principal member of another country’s government. That was effectively an act of war — and another escalation of Trump’s refusal to recognize any constraints on his power.
It’s one more thing that can and should be added to the articles of impeachment.