CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

How the US Became an International Serial Killer

Image by Israel Palacio.

For decades, the United States moved from covert assassination plots to openly embracing assassination or “targeted killing” as policy. Now, in its war with Iran, that evolution is reaching its most dangerous phase.

On March 17th and 18th, the United States and Israel assassinated three senior Iranian government officials in targeted air strikes: Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council; Brigadier General Gholamreza Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s Basij domestic security forces; and Esmaeil Khatib, Iran’s Intelligence Minister.

The missile that killed Ali Larijani also demolished an apartment building and killed more than a hundred people. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announced that Israeli forces were now authorized to assassinate any senior Iranian official whenever they can, and they have continued to do so, bringing the number of Iranian officials assassinated in the past year to at least seventy.

The assassination of Ali Larijani is a blow to the already fraught chances for a negotiated peace between Iran and the United States and Israel. Ali Larijani was an experienced, pragmatic senior official who had played leading roles in negotiations with the US and other world powers since 2005.

Larijani had degrees in math and computer science, attended the revered seminary in Qom, and fought in the Iran-Iraq War, rising to the rank of brigadier-general in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. After the war, he managed Iran’s state broadcasting service, earned a doctorate in Western Philosophy from the University of Tehran, and wrote three books on the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, before entering politics and government in 2005. In 2024, Larijani wrote a book on political philosophy, titled Reason and Tranquility in Governance.

If the U.S. hoped to make peace and restore relations with Iran, Ali Larijani would have been a potential negotiating partner. The decision to assassinate Larijani two weeks into this war suggests that US leaders had no interest in negotiations.

Another possibility........

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