ON January 3, 2020, the US military conducted a drone strike near Baghdad International Airport that martyred the General of peace Major General Haaj Qasem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
The Donald Trump administration initially appeared to justify the strike as an effort to deter imminent attacks on U.S. embassies and personnel, but later insisted that Iran’s actions in the months leading up to the strike triggered the US to use the right for self-defense.
In the aftermath of the strike, Iraq voted to expel U.S. troops from its territory, and Iran conducted a missile strike on American bases in Iraq.
In this paper we will try to examine the assassination of General Qasem Soleimani, Abu Mahdi Al Muhandis, and their other companions from a legal perspective.
First of all, in explaining the cases of violations of the principles of international law in the event of the martyrdom of General Qasem Soleimani, it must be said that the step by the United States in the brutal
assassination of General Soleimani and his companions were obvious violation of international law and the Islamic Republic of Iran has the inherent right to defend itself and to take reciprocal action in accordance with the inalienable rules of international law, and to prevent the violators of the principles of international law going unpunished for committing this terrorist act.
Despite the slogan of fighting terrorism and regardless of whether the US government is Republican or Democratic, sup- porting terrorism has always been one of the ways that US advances its foreign policy
goals. Some of the most important US goals with regard to this terrorist act: 1-US concerns about terrorism: The path of insecurity, war and bloodshed as a way to provide US interests and presence in the
region by the emergence of terrorism, and, therefore, the weakening and elimination of terrorist groups meant the end of US divisiveness in the region.
The annihilation of ISIS by general Soleimani as an outward manifestation of terrorism in the Middle East made what Kissinger saw as the “legitimizing principle of the ruling order” in the context of the apparent fight against terrorism and a process that thinkers called the “American jungle” that makes it meaningless. That is why the martyrdom of Haaj Qasem Soleimani was, in fact, the killing of peace and the strengthening of terrorism with the aim of restoring American interests in the region.
2– Preventing the downfall of the United States: The United States considered itself the undisputed power and police of the world after World War II, but over the past decade there has been much talk of the
American downfall on the world stage, and that is why America is trying to create a new identity by falsely claiming the role of leadership in the fight against terrorism.
For Trump, the assassination of General Soleimani was equivalent to delaying the fall of American hegemony and keeping terrorism from being destroyed to consolidate US hegemony in its apparent struggle against it.
3- Marginalizing Iran’s peaceful identity: From the moment of the victory of the Islamic Revolution, and especially in the new American era, many theorists believe that the Islamic Republic, given its identity,
civilization and normative capacities, is an actor capable of confronting and diminishing American hegemony.
4– Strengthening utilitarian warfare: Hillary Clinton has described Trump as dangerously incompatible. These sentences, which are not few in number, mean that Trump should be called a phenomenon in the American political structure; a phenomenon that, with much more severe cognition than its predecessors, is based on utilitarian peace in order to establish war in West Asia as the only way for the United States to continue its presence in the region.
The assassination of Major General Haaj Qasem Soleimani, a key figure in providing security in West Asia, and the myth of a strategic fight against US-backed terrorist groups are considered.
Trump’s lack of adherence to international law shows that more important goals put his policy team at risk of making this strategic mistake; The goals that should be called the political layers of the assassination of General Soleimani.
The common denominator of all these goals is the US effort to return and strengthen terrorism, as well as to revitalize the American security paradigm in the region, which is to create insecurity; a paradigm that the presence of the General of Peace had seriously challenged.
Therefore, the Trump administration lost its legitimacy by acting against human rights and international law at the global level, and this is an issue that the American people must stand up to prevent the collapse of their government hegemony in the international community.
•Majid Kamrani is Cultural Consular, Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Nigeria