Following the U.S. drone-strike killing of Iranian General Soleimani and the deputy commander of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, Nato's Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, came out predictably with expressions of support for the assassinations.

Nobody in the West (and probably precious few elsewhere, other than Iran, if numbers could be independently ascertained) could in any way be supportive of Soleimani and the barbarous forays he directed that resulted in the deaths of so many innocent people. He deserved to be brought to justice — which does not mean that it was morally defensible or legally permissible to kill him.

And please take a moment to think about the driver of the car he was in, who was also blasted to bits. What possible justification could there have been for killing him? It couldn't be claimed by even Pompeo or Trump that he had been planning to attack America or Americans. This pawn on the board of revenge was killed by a missile fired by a U.S. attack drone.