Renowned American scholar and political activist Noam Chomsky says the assassination of top Iranian anti-terror commander Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani showed that the US is a "rogue state," which has no regard for international law.
“The murder of Soleimnai … is an extraordinarily dangerous act. Nothing like that happened during the Second World War or during the Cold War,” Chomsky said in an interview on Wednesday.
US President Donald Trump ordered the fatal drone strike on General Soleimani’s vehicle upon his arrival in Baghdad International Airport on January 3 at the invitation of the Iraqi government.
The attack also killed Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the second-in-command of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), as well as eight other Iranian and Iraqi people.
The two commanders were highly popular because of the key role they played in eliminating the US-sponsored Daesh terrorist group in the region, particularly in Iraq and Syria.
“It’s as if Iran had decided to murder [US Secretary of State] Mike Pompeo and a major general along with him at Mexico City International Airport. We take that pretty serious and that is what the murder of Soleimani was,” Chomsky said.
“Incidentally, it is praised here which is pretty astonishing; it shows how extreme the internal assumption is, that the United States is a rouge state, which has nothing to do with international law or obligations.”
Back in July, Agnes Callamard, UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, in a report to the UN Human Rights Council underlined the “unlawful” nature of the assassination operation because the US had failed to provide evidence of an ongoing or imminent attack against its interests to justify the strike.
Elsewhere in his remarks, the US professor further highlighted America’s withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, saying Trump’s actions on Iran increases Washington-Tehran tensions.
The pullout, he said, was a “violation of international law” as the agreement was authorized by the United Nations Security Council, he added, referring to UNSC Resolution 2231.
Following its unilateral withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the US unleashed the so-called maximum pressure campaign against Iran and targeted the nation with the “toughest ever” economic sanctions.
Washington has also been pushing to dissuade the other signatories from remaining in the accord.
NOURNEWS