The bad news is that the warrant was issued in Iraq, and almost certainly never be enforced.
The charge is 1st degree murder for the assassination of Iran’s Quds Force commander, Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Iranian Quds force and Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis, the head of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) militia.
Of course, this warrant will never be enforced. If it were, we would see similar warrants issued for every living US President, because assassination has become standard policy here:
The Iraqi supreme court has issued an arrest warrant for former U.S. President Donald Trump for the assassination on Iraqi soil of Iran’s Quds Force commander, Qasem Soleimani, IraqiNews reports, citing a Baghdad news agency.
The warrant was issued on Thursday in connection both with the killing of Soleimani and of another Iraqi militia leader, chief of staff of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) in Iraq–both of whom were killed in a drone strike in January 2020 near the Baghdad airport.
That assassination operation led to Iranian strikes on the Aia Al-Assad U.S. base in Iraq. The arrest warrant charges Trump with premeditated murder. While the warrant is clearly symbolic, a conviction of this nature carries the death penalty.
There is a reason that this behavior has largely been eschewed by civilized nations, and it is not that it appears to be illegal under international law. It is because assassination is inherently an asymmetrical act, and should a foreign government decide to retaliate, they would not have a particularly difficult time engaging in retribution.
The question here is when this will happen, not if this will happen.
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