"Certainly, United States President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are basking in the limelight of their perceived success in assassinating Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. But killing an 86-year-old man who had already been planning his succession due to his ill health is not that much of a feat considering the overwhelming firepower that the US and Israel together possess."
"More importantly, eliminating him does not necessarily mean that what follows would be a leadership or a regime that would accommodate Israeli and US interests. That is because leadership assassinations do not lead to peaceful outcomes in the Middle East. They can open the door for much more radical successors or for chaos that leads to violence and upheaval."
"In the case of Iraq, its leader Saddam Hussein was captured by US forces and handed over to allied Iraqi forces who executed him. This ended a regime that was openly antagonistic to Israel, but it also opened the doors for pro-Iranian forces to take power. As a result, in the following two decades, Iraq served as a launching pad for Iran's regional proxy strategy."
Assassinating enemy leaders provides temporary political popularity but proves strategically counterproductive in the Middle East. While Trump and Netanyahu celebrate eliminating Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, killing an elderly leader with succession plans already established represents minimal military achievement. More critically, removing a leader does not guarantee favorable successors or peaceful outcomes. Historical evidence demonstrates that US and Israeli decapitation strategies consistently backfire. Iraq's experience exemplifies this pattern: Saddam Hussein's execution eliminated an Israeli antagonist but created a power vacuum allowing pro-Iranian forces to dominate. Over two decades, Iraq became Iran's regional proxy hub, establishing networks threatening US and Israeli interests. The security vacuum triggered insurgencies, culminating in ISIS's devastating rise across the Middle East.
#middle-east-geopolitics #leadership-assassination-strategy #us-israel-foreign-policy #regional-power-vacuums #unintended-consequences
Read at www.aljazeera.com
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