John J. Mearsheimer

The 12-day war, June 13th to June 25th.

And that attack, which was initiated by the Israelis, came out of the blue.

And it's when the Iranians were in the middle of negotiations.

That's the level we've sunk to.

I mean, there's just no getting around this.

And you see this, I think, with the General Soleimani case.

I think that was a colossal mistake on our part.

But this is where we're at.

And by the way, you know, I think this whole business of assassination is very important because I think it has a blowback effect into the United States.

I don't think you want to be sending a signal to people in the United States saying,

Certainly, President Trump should not want to be doing this, given that he was the victim of an assassination attempt.

I agree with that.

He should not be sending the message that assassination is a legitimate way of doing business.

Yes, I agree with that.

You just don't want to do this.

It's not only morally wrong, it just doesn't make any sense for how we conduct politics inside the United States or around the world.

Assassination should just be for very exceptional circumstances.

If you could have assassinated Adolf Hitler, of course you would have done that.

But these are the extreme cases.

Otherwise, we should be out of the business of assassination and actually condemning it when it happens.