Should the U.S. be in business of assassinating foreign leaders?

Summary

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Podcast Summary: "Should the U.S. be in the business of assassinating foreign leaders?"

Podcast: Consider This from NPR
Host: Ilsa Chang, Ryan Lucas (NPR)
Date: March 12, 2026
Duration: ~8 minutes (excluding ads and credits)

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Overview of the Episode

This episode of "Consider This" tackles the grave and controversial question: Should the United States engage in assassinating foreign leaders? Prompted by the U.S. and Israel's operation that killed Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, NPR explores the historical context, legal and moral boundaries, and the implications for democracies. The episode draws on expert analysis, historical episodes, and significant recent events to weigh the strategic, philosophical, and ethical dimensions of political assassination.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Khamenei Assassination – A New Precedent?

• Ilsa Chang introduces the unprecedented U.S.-Israeli strike that killed Iran's supreme leader.
  • "In the opening strike of their war on Iran, the US and Israel killed the Islamic Republic's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei." – Ilsa Chang [00:00]
• Ryan Lucas notes this is exceedingly rare for democracies and prompts the core episode question.
  • “Should the United States be in the business of assassinating foreign leaders?” – [00:56]

2. Historical Roots: Cold War Contingencies

• Ryan Lucas traces U.S. history of targeting foreign leaders, citing Dominican dictator Trujillo (1961) and multiple CIA plots:
  • "The CIA also plotted to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro, among others in this era." – Ilsa Chang [00:27]
• Luca Trenta (historian):
  • “There was certainly a sense that assassination was just another contingency, something that the United States could not entirely exclude in the confrontation with the Soviet Union.” – Luca Trenta [02:42]

3. From Shadows to Scandal: The Church Committee

• Exposure of CIA plots in the 1970s forced public reckoning:
  • “...the Church Committee... declared assassinations incompatible with American principles, international order and morality... and said they should be rejected as a tool of foreign policy.” – Ryan Lucas [03:13]
• Trenta:
  • “The investigations of the Church Committee really provide a brief moment of self-reflection for US politicians, for the US public, in which there is a sense that maybe if we are a democracy... we should not be doing these things.” – Luca Trenta [03:44]

4. Formal Ban: Executive Orders and Presidential Taboos

• President Gerald Ford (1976) issues an executive order banning assassinations, echoed by Carter and Reagan.
  • “Gerald Ford felt that this was not a tool that he wanted to use. And what's really interesting is that his successors expanded the ban.” – Timothy Naftali [04:16]
• Despite the ban, the US skirted the lines with military actions targeting leaders' compounds (Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein).
  • “We don't do assassinations, but yes, we targeted. We targeted all the places where Saddam might have been.” – Brent Scowcroft [05:00]
  • “I guess. Yeah, that's fair enough.” – Brent Scowcroft [05:13]

5. The War on Terror: A Shifting Line

• Naftali: After 9/11, the old taboo faded as Congress granted all necessary means to pursue Al Qaeda.
  • “Well, all necessary means includes assassination. And I think the taboo... against using assassination, disappears in the post 9/11 world.” – Timothy Naftali [05:57-06:09]
• The rise of drone strikes blurred military and political assassinations—especially with the 2020 strike on Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, a government official labelled terrorist by the U.S.

6. Blurring the Boundary: State Leaders as Targets

• Ryan Lucas notes that six years after Soleimani, the Khamenei killing marks a direct move against a head of state, with U.S. intelligence aiding an Israeli lethal operation.
  • “President Trump has crowed about the operation, saying on social media that Khamenei was unable to avoid our intelligence and and highly sophisticated tracking systems.” – [06:55]

7. Strategic and Ethical Reckoning

• Luca Trenta cautions against eroding the taboo:
  • "I think the Khamenei assassination is a major deal because democracies have killed a foreign heads of state because other countries might follow the same example and there will be nothing that democracies will be able to say when that happens, the moral high ground is lost." – Luca Trenta [07:26-07:43]
• Ryan Lucas: This act potentially "loses the moral high ground," threatening the taboo and opening the door for tit-for-tat assassinations by others.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Ilsa Chang [00:56]: "Just because a country can doesn’t mean it should."
• Luca Trenta [02:42]: "Assassination was just another contingency... in the confrontation with the Soviet Union."
• Church Committee finding [03:13]: "'Assassinations [are] incompatible with American principles, international order and morality.'"
• Timothy Naftali [05:57]: "...the taboo... against using assassination, disappears."
• Luca Trenta [07:26]: "The moral high ground is lost... and perhaps along with it, the taboo against such assassinations."

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:00-01:26 – Introduction, context for Khamenei assassination
• 02:26-03:44 – Cold War era, CIA operations, and Church Committee
• 04:03-04:31 – Executive Orders and aftermath
• 05:00-05:16 – Targeting of Saddam Hussein, bending the ban
• 05:37-06:09 – Post-9/11 paradigm shift
• 06:26-07:26 – Soleimani precedent, Khamenei strike
• 07:26-07:53 – Trenta on the loss of moral high ground

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Conclusion

The episode delivers a concise yet thorough exploration of America's uneasy dance with the practice of assassinating foreign leaders. From Cold War plots and executive bans to the post-9/11 era of drones and blurred lines, the killing of Khamenei represents a significant departure for democracies—and raises critical questions about morality, legality, security, and precedent in global affairs. The experts warn: what democracies do now will shape what others feel justified in doing next.

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Transcript

[Ilsa Chang]

In the opening strike of their war on Iran, the US And Israel killed the Islamic Republic's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

[Ryan Lucas]

Iranian state media is telling the people of Iran that the Ayatollah has been killed.

[Ilsa Chang]

This is not the first time the US has targeted a foreign leader. It helped set the stage for the 1961 assassination of the Dominican Republic's Rafael Trujillo.

[Interviewee (e.g., expert or official)]

As dictator Rafael Trujillo is shot down by seven assassins.

[Ilsa Chang]

The CIA also plotted to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro, among others in this era. More recently, in 2020, President Trump announced a successful drone strike against a high ranking Iranian official, Qasem Soleimani, whom the US Government considered a terrorist.

[Interviewee (e.g., expert or official)]

Last night, at my direction, the United States military successfully executed a flawless precision strike that killed the number one terrorist anywhere in the world.

[Ilsa Chang]

Consider this. It is exceedingly rare for a democracy to kill a foreign head of state. So the killing of Ayatollah Khamenei raises the question, not for the first time in US History should the United States be in the business of assassinating foreign leaders. Some experts say just because a country can doesn't mean it should. From NPR Hi, I'm Ilsa Chang.

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[Historian or Analyst (e.g., Timothy Naftali)]

It's

[Ilsa Chang]

consider this from npr. The question of whether or not the US should be involved in the assassinations of foreign leaders has been thrown into sharp relief by the U.S. and Israel strike that killed Iran's Ayatollah. NPR's Ryan Lucas examined the U.S. s shifting relationship with the idea of killing foreign heads of state. It's rare for democracies to do so, but it's something that US Leaders and the American public have long wrestled with. Here's his report.

[Ryan Lucas]

In the first few decades of the Cold War, the United States wanted to keep all options on the table, including assassinations in its global struggle against the Soviet Union. Luca Trenta is a professor at Swansea University in the UK and the author of a book on assassinations in US Foreign policy.

[Luca Trenta]

There was certainly a sense that assassination was just another contingency, something that the United States could not entirely exclude in the confrontation with the Soviet Union that was seen as this sort of all powerful and terrible enemy.

[Ryan Lucas]

Trenta says in the early Cold War, the US Often set the stage for the removal or killing of a foreign leader, but local allies pulled the trigger. That was the case, he says, in the 1961 assassination of the Dominican leader Rafael Trujillo.

[Interviewee (e.g., expert or official)]

As dictator Rafael Trujillo is shot down

[Ryan Lucas]

by seven assassins, the CIA in this era also of course, plotted to assassinate Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba and Cuban leader Fidel Castro. This was all done in the shadows and it came tumbling out in public in the mid-1970s when revelations of CIA abuses led to congressional investigations, including one known as the Church Committee. That panel issued an interim report that declared assassinations incompatible with American principles, international order and morality, end quote, and said they should be rejected as a tool of foreign policy.

[Luca Trenta]

Again, Trenta, I think the investigations of the Church Committee really provide a brief moment of self reflection for US politicians, for the US public, in which there is a sense that maybe if we are a democracy and if we are to be different from the enemies that we are supposedly fighting, we should not be doing these things.

[Ryan Lucas]

In 1976, President Gerald Ford did exactly that. He issued an executive order banning the US Government from engaging in political assassinations. Timothy Naftali is a historian at Columbia University.

[Historian or Analyst (e.g., Timothy Naftali)]

Gerald Ford felt that this was not a tool that he wanted to use. And what's really interesting is that his successors expanded the ban. So Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter both felt that the United States should not be in the assassination business.

[Ryan Lucas]

And for the next 20 plus years, the US was not, although with an asterisk or two. In 1986, the US bombed several sites in Libya, including leader Moammar Gaddafi's family compound. And twice in the 1990s, the US struck Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's palaces. Brent Scowcroft was President George H.W. bush's national security adviser. Here is Scowcroft talking to ABC News Peter Jennings about the U.S. targeting of Saddam in 1991.

[Sponsor Voice (BetterHelp, Cachava)]

Do you want him killed?

[Interviewee (e.g., expert or official)]

Well, we don't do assassinations, but yes, we targeted. We targeted all the places where Saddam might have been.

[Ryan Lucas]

So you deliberately set out to kill him if you possibly could?

[Interviewee (e.g., expert or official)]

I guess. Yeah, that's fair enough.

[Ryan Lucas]

Naftali says these operations weren't cloak and dagger conspiracies to kill a foreign leader, but instead military operations against command and control facilities. But of course, the US Wouldn't have wept any tears, he says, if Saddam or Gaddafi had been killed.

[Historian or Analyst (e.g., Timothy Naftali)]

I think that's how Presidents Reagan, Bush and Clinton got around the assassination ban.

[Ryan Lucas]

That reflects at least in part, he says, that presidents themselves found assassinations distasteful and knew the American public felt the same way. That changed on September 11, 2001 with the Al Qaeda terrorist attacks that killed more than 3,000 people. Congress responded by authorizing all necessary means to go after the perpetrators of 9 11.

[Historian or Analyst (e.g., Timothy Naftali)]

Naftali says, well, all necessary means includes assassination. And I think that the taboo, if you want to call it an elite and public taboo, against using assassination, disappears

[Ryan Lucas]

in the post 911 world. The US adopted a new technology, the armed drone, to kill Al Qaeda leaders around the globe. But these strikes targeted alleged terrorists, not foreign government officials. President Trump blurred that line when he announced a deadly drone strike in 2020 against Iranian General Qasem Soleimani.

[Interviewee (e.g., expert or official)]

Soleimani has been perpetrating acts of terror to destabilize the Middle east for the last 20 years.

[Ryan Lucas]

While the US considered Soleimani a terrorist, he was a high ranking Iranian government official. Iran responded with plots of its own to assassinate Trump as well as senior administration officials. Now, six years later, a joint U. S Israeli operation has killed Iran's political and religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The US Provided intelligence while Israel conducted the lethal strike. President Trump has crowed about the operation, saying on social media that Khamenei was unable to avoid our intelligence and and highly sophisticated tracking systems. Those sophisticated intelligence and military capabilities make it increasingly easy to kill foreign leaders, experts say, and that carries with it a whole host of strategic, philosophical and moral implications. And Swansea University professor Luca Trentis says just because a country can assassinate a foreign leader doesn't mean that it should.

[Luca Trenta]

I think the Khamenei assassination is a major deal because democracies have killed a foreign heads of state because other countries might follow the same example and there will be nothing that democracies will be able to say when that happens, the

[Ryan Lucas]

moral high ground is lost, he says, and perhaps along with it, the taboo against such assassinations. Ryan Lucas, NPR News, Washington.

[Ilsa Chang]

This episode was produced by Mallory Yu and Erica Ryan with audio engineering by Jay Siz. It was edited by John Ketchum and Anna Yukinoff. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun. It's consider this from npr. I'm Ilsa Chang.

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