Would you be defending Iran if they had assassinated Pompeo or Pence when they were on a foreign visit? I presume they are viewed as enemies of the Iranian regime, so all cool, right?

Sounds a bit like Hitler to me: "The Polish attacked".

I mentioned that before and I still wonder: Why do American presidents get away with killing people (no trial, no lawyer) of other nationalities who happen to be in yet a third country?!
It is plain murder!

That is not a good comparison.

Soleimani was an actor in that war (as well as pretty much any other war in the Middle East) and he was killed on enemy territory.

It's bit like Pompeo being killed on a visit to Yemen or Syria. Or Iraq.

Soleimani clearly thought that he was beyond reach. Also, Trump had shied back from a previous retaliatory attack on Iran a while ago (remember?) at the very last minute.

Iran was clearly "twisting the dragon's tail", so to speak.

I think you've put the cart before the horse there if you feel Iran are doing the twisting in this instance.

Point remains, if Iran killed Pompeo in any of those countries, Donald would be hitting the big red button before he could even compose a tweet.

It is an act of war.

You can see how extraordinary it was by the extreme reticence of any other allied country, bar Israel, from saying it was appropriate. Even Arselicker-In-Chief BoJo has been notable by his silence.

Well, Russia does it, too and Putin still gets invited ;-)
And of course, there's Israel. They can be very creative in this area.

It had come out of fashion a bit, but clearly assassinations are on the rise again.

Oh good, that should give someone give time to interfere.

In the Middle East, it's really a question of "How far back in time do you want to go?" if you want to assign blame....

Absolutely. Probably back to the US overthrow of the Shah and subsequent emergence of a hostile islamic state?

It has been noted that before the strike, Trump's Twitter-account was unusually inactive for a while.

They probably "misplaced" his phone, just to be sure.

There's the British involvement, too and their role in the formation of the modern State of Israel...

With the "right" arguments, you can even blame Jesus himself ;-)
And don't forget the Romans!

Why did a mod thank a post from such an obvious alt? My bet is Loz regretting his hissy fit.

Iran has already mentioned that.

It is not just the ME who have long memories; have a few drinks with any Irishman who will sooner or later bring up the battle of the Boyne (1690).
I used to work for a French company and when the locals drank too much I had to hear about the Battle of Agincourt (1415) where apparently the English unsportingly shot first!

The urban myth of the fabled driveby Mod

And then there is that goal in 1966 ..... God only knows what will happen between Germany and Great Britain once the limiting club-rules of EU membership will fall away. And Switzerland will stay well away from umpiring this time round.

Nuke and pave is still the only viable answer.

Tom

For which side?

The US is a rather large area to pave.

I heard they just closed the internet connection and cached the tweets, he would not notice.

Jean: What happened Louis, you seem very upset. Is there anything wrong with your folks?
Louis: Nah, I'm just pissed at the bloody English and their dirty tricks!! Bastards.
Jean: How so? What happened?
Louis: It's the Battle of Agincourt when the sick bastards unsportingly shot first!
Jean: Uhmm but...but Louis, that was 600 years ago!!....
Louis: I know, but I just found out yesterday!

It's an old joke that I know but you can change the characters and the countries or events....it would still fit almost every nationality.

It looks like one of those "Who has the biggest one" competitions!

Apart from a couple of technical issues like "Deliberately attacking civilian locations, like cultural sites, is a War Crime" and is terrorism like ISIS there is also the fact that Trump, according to the US Constitution, requires Congressional approval before declaring war.

He might get away with claiming the killing of Gen. Qassem Soleimani was an emergency action to stop an attack so there was no time for Congressional approval (although he did manage to inform Lindsey Graham in advance) but this warning is clearly not an emergency.

WW1 repeat scenario?

The immediate cause of World War I was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary.