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Comment by mc32 | Hacker News Reader

I’m sure this question comes up in high up meetings. What positions are taboo for this sort of thing? Offing enemies on foreign territory isn’t new. (poisoned umbrella tips, polonium laced teas, Hillary and her drones, etc.) but now that more remote means are available to more regimes and governments what keeps someone from liquidating a pariah head of state or their inner circle?

It would seem the big players have some kind of tacit agreement, but what happens when a second rate dictator uses this option?

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It usually boils down to ‘will they be able to hurt us in a way that will outweigh the value to us of taking this target out’.

If a 2nd rate dictator takes out someone from a 1st world country or their allies this way? They won’t be a dictator for long, guaranteed. Someone will get a UN resolution going, call for a coalition, and within a week they’ll have their palaces bombed - if folks want to spend the effort doing it that way instead of having Mossad or the CIA put a bomb in their car anyway.

Someone from a 1st world gov’t wanting to do this to a 2nd tier gov’t? Well, how much pull does that person have with the 1st world gov’ts allies? Is there major business or economic blowback possible? Would they be able to start a war or blow something up that would hurt us? Is there bad PR to worry about? A congressional or parliamentary investigation that could happen? Or like in this case is the target considered ‘a bad person’ working for a ‘bad country’ that is already sanctioned and won’t hurt any major 1st world economic or business interests?

If not likely to stir up any fuss and could make something happen someone wants, some enterprising group is likely to take them out. Either military, intelligence, or private.

> What positions are taboo for this sort of thing?

I'm not sure what this question means exactly? Are you asking what kind of targeted foreign aggression is informally permissible?

"What happens when China starts using this option?" Is the real question.

Maybe they already have. Maybe they are content to let the old powers continue to play by the old rules, while they wage a much more economic war.

In the last 20 years I have watched the US decry left and right while we seemingly accelerate our own diplomatic malpractices.

I think the Soviet Union/Russia (in the modern era) let this genie out and it's not going back in.

If they use it, we may be able to impose economic sanctions for some time. If they get so sanctioned it makes little difference, like with Russia, then nothing will stop them at that point.

For me, killing Qasem Soleimani should have been taboo.

Apparently Castro in his own country wasn’t. That general was in a foreign conflict directing insurgent operations against us.

Do you think Iran would vacillate about liquidating a general from an inferior adversary if that adversary were inflicting loses upon it, in say, Syria?

Are you suggesting that we should take moral cues from our enemies?

Or that normalizing peacetime assassinations won't have an obvious destabilizing effect?

Ideals are nice, but realpolitik sneaks up on you and you do have to do what they would do, else you are going to suffer more then the moral guilt.

War is war. There is nothing nice about it. All these these morals are only carried out 'because you can afford them' not because you have to.

At one time, in war, one spared enemy commanders, that was nice for when the upper ranks were from the elite and you ransomed them off or traded. Today, this is not the case. I don't see a lot of daylight between these two things.

What are you talking about? The US is not at war with Iran. We assassinated a general and nuclear scientist with drones after we pulled out of a nuclear agreement they agreed to. They have since said they are open to rejoin the nuclear agreement with little US response. Before we go all war hawk, let’s remember that Iran has repeatedly expressed interest in rejoining the international community and renegotiating the nuclear deal.

So we are not at war, but why is Iran advising insurgents and other groups on getting to US targets and inflicting losses on us? Their intelligence services, advisors and equipment are used to target our troops and allies in the region. Tit for tat.

What? Israel’s navy commander Sharvit just confirmed that Israel attacked Iranian ships in the Red Sea. You have this backwards.

Israel pushed the Obama administration into having no negotiations with Iran wrt nuclear power in a bid to force military intervention. This is despite the fact that Israel itself is one of only four nations (including India, Pakistan, and North Korea) who is not an NPT signatory but has nuclear weapons nonetheless. Ironically, this backfired because by forcing the issue, Obama made it a priority to establish formal relations with Iran on nuclear power, but the intention was still there to isolate and demonize Iran. And then in 2013 when AIPAC lobbied hard for military intervention in Syria. And again in 2015. If anyone is urging their “insurgents” towards war, it is Israel, not Iran, who not only complied with the terms of JCPOA, but exceeded them. And again, even though Raisi is criticizing the US for waging war via sanctions, Iran’s official position is still to negotiate a new nuclear agreement in eventual hope to join the NPT (something Netanyahu specifically tried to avoid in the terms of JCPOA).

Trying to kill Castro should have been taboo as well.

Iran was also working with the west to defeat Daesh.

>Iran was also working with the west to defeat Daesh.

I'm sure we appreciated that. What we didn't appreciate as much was his involvement in insurgent actions against coalition forces.

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