The MQ-9 Reaper attack that took out Iranian General Qassim Suleimani was a drone strike for peace, President Trump explained last week: we took action “to stop a war. We did not take action to start a war.” That’s a theory, and it’s going to be put to the test. “All is well!” the president tweeted last night as a salvo of Iranian missiles fell on U.S. positions in Iraq: “So far, so good!”
Trump’s decision to target Suleimani—a figure described as the Iranian equivalent of “an American Vice President, chairman of the Joint Chiefs and CIA director rolled into one”—wasn’t the first time the U.S. government has aimed lethal force at a top government official. There’s the checkered—and occasionally absurd—history of the CIA’s Cold War assassination attempts, including the Kennedys’ efforts to kill Fidel Castro. But we’ve also gone after legitimate targets in congressionally authorized wars: the downing of Admiral Yamamoto’s plane in WWII and the attempted decapitation strike against Saddam Hussein at the start of the Iraq War.
The Suleimani killing was something new under the sun. It marked the first time an American president has publicly ordered the assassination of a top government official for a country we’re not legally at war with.
This is where you’re supposed to acknowledge that the Quds Force commandant was an evil guy who got what he deserved. Done. But that’s got nothing to do with whether the move was wise or constitutionally permissible.
U.S. forces took out Suleimani “at the direction of the President,” per the Pentagon’s announcement. On what authority, exactly? For now, the official rationale is classified. In terms of public justification, all we have is some hand‐waving by Trump’s national security adviser about the president’s “constitutional authorities as commander in chief to defend our nation” and the 17‐year old Authorization for the Use of Military Force in Iraq (2002 AUMF). Neither comes close to vesting the president with the power to set off a whole new war.
Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/trump-decider
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