Assassination of Gen. Soleimani by the US was an act of war: Scholar

The assassination of Iranian Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani by the United States was an act of war, says an American academic and analyst.

James Fetzer, a retired professor of philosophy at the University of Minnesota, made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Friday while commenting on a New York Times report which said Washington ordered the assassination to sabotage de-escalation talks between Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The paper reported on Thursday that General Soleimani had been arranging talks in Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates in order to de-escalate tensions with Tehran.

The Times wrote that the talks happened after Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which are central to the Trump administration's so-called regional alliance seeking to pressure Iran, began to question the efficiency of Washington's anti-Iran campaign.

According to the report, one such meeting took place last September in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates where a plane carrying "senior Iranian officials" landed for talks.

Gen. Soleimani assassinated to sabotage Iran's talks with Saudis, UAE following Israeli briefing: NYT

Washington ordered the assassination of top Iranian General Qassem Soleimani to sabotage de-escalation talks between Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates following a report by Israel

Fetzer said, “There are very serious divisions it appears in elements in the administration about foreign policy towards Iran. We have just had the passage of a Senate bill restraining Trump from taking actions that would lead to war against Iran -- too late, of course, already done.”

“The assassination of General Soleimani, for example, was an act of war, that was a violation of international law and the UN Charter which only permits one nation to strike another in a preemptory fashion under two conditions: first, when there is approval of the UN Security Council which was not the case here, or second when there is an eminent threat requiring an immediate response which was obviously also not the case here,” he stated.

“Indeed General Soleimani was on a peace mission. He was the guest of the Prime Minister of Iraq. This was to deal with an overture from Saudi Arabia, and appears to have been initiated by Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo in a dastardly act of perfidy that set him up for  assassination; that was ostensibly warranted on the basis of an attack that was attributed to Iran in which an American contractor, single American contractor, died but the latest evidence suggests that it was in fact launched by ISIS (Daesh) -- not surprising because the United States and Israel had repeatedly used attacks that were either staged or caused by rebel forces, anti-Assad forces to justify attacks on Syria,” he stated.

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