Shockingly, Shia Islam’s Grand Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi has issued a Fatwa against Donald Trump and Bibi Netanyahu.
Well, that changes everything, doesn’t it?
IRAN: Grand Ayatollah tells “Muslims of world” to kill POTUS Trump.
Makarem Shirazi: “Anyone threatening or acting against Supreme Leader is Mohareb (enemy of Allah, designated for killing)… If harm comes to you in this mission, you will be recognized as (warriors) of Allah.” pic.twitter.com/nwofafw7Zp
— Khosro K Isfahani (@KhosroIsfahani) June 29, 2025
Uh, well, no. I guess not. Hasn’t Iran already been sending death squads against Donald Trump? Didn’t they almost kill Mike Pompeo not too long ago?
Iran nearly succeeded in orchestrating assassination of Mike Pompeo in Europe in 2022, book reveals https://t.co/dwlSUk1N4V
— Raffaello Pantucci (@raffpantucci) June 28, 2025
Iran nearly succeeded in orchestrating an assassination of former secretary of state Mike Pompeo at a European hotel in 2022, and then-candidate Donald Trump and his campaign were told by intelligence officials last September that the longtime U.S. foe had recruited hit men who were active at the time on American soil, according to a forthcoming book about the 2024 presidential campaign. …
Iranian hit men tried to assassinate U.S. officials at least three times in the three years preceding Trump’s election, as his campaign for president ramped up. Two of those attempts have been widely reported, but the incident involving Pompeo in Paris has not previously been disclosed. Also new is the account in the book that U.S. intelligence officials told Trump’s team in September of last year that Iran had recruited hit teams that remained active inside the country.
In 2022, Iranians learned of the Paris hotel where Pompeo was staying and tried to assassinate him. He narrowly escaped, the book says, but it provides no other details.
I’m not quite clear what a fatwa is going to change, and it’s hard to get too upset about the Iranians wanting to take out Trump or Netanyahu, at least on an ethical level. Turnabout is fair play, I guess, although it is also fair to say that Trump’s bombing Fordow and the other nuclear sites likely SAVED Khamenei’s life by creating the space for a cease-fire. Khamenei was a legitimate target of war.
Of course, in practical terms, the ethics really don’t matter that much. In international affairs, between sovereign nations, what matters most is what you can get away with and what is most prudent. And I see no prudential reason for Trump or any Western power to allow Iran to take free shots at our president. No doubt, a clear message has been sent to Iran: Massive Ordnance Penetrators are very effective.
Given that Trump has already been a target for Iran, this changes nothing. What it does is remind us that this is who the Iranians are–implacable enemies. The only reason to give them quarter is that we can’t be sure what will come next. Removing Saddam didn’t leave the world better off. The Syrian Civil War, partially sparked by the Obama color revolution mania, made the world much worse off. Abandoning Mubarak was stupid. Killing Gaddafi was a disaster. And so on…
A bit of humility might be in order. We can feel as outraged as we want about this new insult to our president and threat to our nation, but this is a regime that opens its parliament with shouts of “Death to America.” This is just one more way of shouting the same thing.
Our job is to make it hard to accomplish their goals and to ensure that they are kept within as small a box as possible.
If we could be sure that a better Iran would follow the Ayatollahs, killing Khamenei and the Grand Ayatollah would be prudent.
But probably not.
