International Law?
Donald Trump has officially announced the death of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. It must be stated plainly that, in the context of such a message, the international situation moves onto a new and far more dangerous level.
One may relate to the Islamic Republic of Iran, its political structure, its ideology and its ruling circles in any manner one chooses. Grounds for any attitude, including the most negative, are not difficult to find for those who wish to find them. Yet Ali Khamenei was the legitimate head of a state that is a member of the United Nations, recognized by nearly all, and a lawful participant in all forms of international relations. Including political negotiations with the very organizers of the attack, negotiations that continued up to the moment of his death.
The destruction of the head of one state by another state, by decision of its leadership, according to the same model used against the heads of terrorist organizations or drug cartels, is a different dimension of world politics. Even when measured against earlier episodes of regime change, including the violent ends of Gaddafi and Hussein.
Both of those cases became possible through external military intervention. Yet Gaddafi was killed by his Libyan opponents in the course of internal turmoil, and Hussein was executed following a trial and a verdict issued by an Iraqi court, regardless of how one assesses its objectivity. The Iranian case is different. It represents the reproduction of a method previously employed by Israel against the leadership of Hezbollah and Hamas.
What is unfolding amounts to the dismantling of fundamental restraining elements of international relations that survived from previous eras. Because the system moved toward this point gradually and arrived there without abrupt rupture, many political elites appear not to view these events in dramatic terms. They regard them as sharp, but ultimately comprehensible manifestations of accumulated contradictions. Not everyone sees it that way. The conclusions that opponents of the United States are entitled to draw are straightforward.
First, negotiations with the Americans have little intrinsic meaning. The real question becomes either capitulation or tactical imitation for the purpose of preparing a forceful response.
Second, situations arise in which there is nowhere left to retreat and nothing left to lose. In such circumstances, any final argument available becomes legitimate - whatever “button” happens to exist, literal or figurative.
These conclusions will stand regardless of what happens in Iran in the coming days. Even if an improved version of the Venezuelan model emerges - a backstage agreement transferring power into hands acceptable to all parties, which at present seems unlikely, though it is no longer possible to exclude anything - such social engineering will not reassure other regimes that oppose the United States.
The mechanism of removing leadership and placing states under external control has been demonstrated. Resistance to it will intensify and grow more desperate. Under certain scenarios, the consequences become fatal.
As for that atavism known as international law, there is little point in mentioning it - even ironically.