Killing Soleimani

The decision to authorise the deadly attack on General Qassem Soleimani raises many questions and opens the door to a few uncertainties. In my opinion, it was taken in the wake of two events that the US Administration considered to be especially striking.

One was the attack by demonstrators close to the militias that Iran is supporting in Iraq against the US Embassy in Baghdad. In Washington's ruling circles, this incident is seen as very serious. It is also a reminder of dramatic memories, of what happened in Tehran forty years ago. For the American leadership, the assault against the embassy is something that cannot go unanswered.

The other event was the naval military exercise that Iran carried out a week ago together with China and Russia. The current American Administration did not want any of these three countries to believe that such maritime manoeuvres would have any chance of intimidating it or diminishing its resolve. And this determination and firmness had to be demonstrated without any room for misunderstanding.

In deciding, President Trump must also have thought about the impact that such forceful action would have on his electorate. This is a decisive political year for him. He needs to show that he does not hesitate when it comes to respond to those who are presented as the enemies of the United States.

But we have several problems here.

One of them is that acting to show strength, based on the principle of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, is unacceptable. It opens the door to a spiral of violence and throws away certain basic norms of relations between states. It is an historic step backwards. You cannot build peace on retaliation. The international community has other mechanisms to deal with conflicts and to make governments that do not obey the established rules reflect.

Another problem is that this type of decision cannot be taken without measuring all the consequences that may follow. My analysis of Mike Pompeo's statements is that these consequences have not been considered. The Secretary of State now talks of lowering the tension in the region after an act that inevitably leads to an escalation. It sounds like that neighbour who spends the night with the music screaming and the next morning tells me on the stairs that we all need rest and tranquillity. 

A third aspect has to do with the legality and morality of this kind of action. These two sets of questions cannot be ignored. War itself has its rules. Several academics have been addressing these issues. There are good pieces of reflection written about conducting attacks with drones in foreign lands. And the majority opinion seems to go in the opposite direction to what has now happened.

Nor can one ignore the discussion about the military doctrine behind the so-called "decapitation" of hostile movements. I will not dwell on this subject, but the truth is that the validity of the theory that advocates the elimination of leaders to resolve a conflict has much to be said about. Let me just refer that often the dead leader is replaced either by another leader that is even more radical. In other cases, we witness a fragmentation of the movement, with smaller terror groups acting on their own, and a new level of danger, amorphous and more difficult to combat.

After all, all this is far more complex than many would have us believe. And this complexity increases exponentially when a character like Qassem Soleimani is assassinated by a great western state.