Has the US ever assassinated a world leader before?

The US government for decades shied away from targeting foreign leaders after embarrassing failures and unintended consequences from covert activities by the CIA. There is actually a ban on US involvement in assassinations in US law – most recently in an executive order signed by Ronald Reagan. It is still technically in effect.

But since 9/11, after which Congress gave presidents broad authority to use force to combat terrorism, there has been a slow but steady move toward this moment. Presidents from both parties have killed leaders of terrorist groups such as Osama bin Laden. President Donald Trump took another step when he ordered the killing of Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani by airstrike in Iraq in 2020. Now the US has killed a foreign head of state. “You can always come up with an individual who, by their power and their depth of depravity, whose removal benefits humanity,” Naftali said, arguing few will mourn Khamenei’s demise. “But making the decision to wipe out a foreign head of state should not be taken easily or quickly.” ‘I got him before he got me’.

Neither President Donald Trump nor the Trump administration has publicly used that word – assassination – to describe the killing of Khamenei. They have offered multiple reasons for attacking Iran – lack of faith in Iran’s leaders in negotiations over Iran’s plans for a nuclear program; the potential for Iran to develop anti-ballistic missiles; Iran’s sponsorship of terror groups in other countries, the recent killing of protesters in its streets.

The targeting and killing of Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, which opened an undeclared war with Iran, is the first time in modern history the US — in this case working with Israel — openly killed the leader of a foreign country, according to CNN presidential historian Tim Naftali. For those keeping track, the US has now decapitated two foreign governments — both US adversaries overseeing vast oil reserves — in the past two months. Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro is in New York awaiting trial and Khamenei is dead.