@hoot You're talking Anwar al-Awlaki? Yes, that wasn't cool. Extrajudicial killings, or attempted killings, didn't start with Obama, though. Prior incidents include the 1960 CIA plot to take out the prime minister of Congo, multiple failed attempts to take out Fidel Castro, Clinton's 1998 authorization of the CIA killing of bin Laden and his top lieutenants, George W.'s 2002 targeted killing of Kamal Derwish, a US citizen and al-Qaeda operative, and the Bush administration's 2003 air strikes on Saddam Hussein's palace bunker in an effort to take him out at the beginning of the war.Butch Crawling recall a seminar attended by Lee Hamilton who warned against assassinating high profile enemy figures as Obama when president had done when Obama ordered the killing of non-state militant leaders.
Hamilton argued that such orders by a president would undoubtedly lead to assassinations of heads of state as occurred recently in Iran. Hamilton visualized a day could come when a U.S. President would be assassinated by a drone in retaliation for one of our assassinations.
Ironically, Trump recently complained that the Iranian leaders currently in charge following the assassination of the former leadership lack the standing to make decisions necessary for a negotiated deal. Trump has called them "disjointed", "argumentative", and "fractured". Thus, by knocking out the old guard, have we made a peace deal more difficult?
