Conclusion: Assassination, ‘Targeted Killings’ and the Ban since 9/11

The aim of the conclusion is twofold. First, the concluding chapter brings the account of the US government’s involvement in assassination to the present day (Biden Administration). Here the analysis details the transition – after 9/11 – from assassination to the more aseptic ‘targeted killing.’ The main argument here is not that nothing changed on 9/11 but that the legal and political precedents for ‘targeted killings’ in counterterrorism had been developing since the 1980s. 9/11 removed bureaucratic and financial obstacles. The chapter also traces the rise of drones and the Obama Administration’s efforts to justify drones strikes as an (internationally) legal foreign policy measure and to deny that such measure represented a violation of the ban on assassination. The chapter shows how – in office – trump considered the assassination of various officials, ultimately ordering the killing of Soleimani. Second, the conclusion summarises the main argument of the book highlighting the strong interconnection between the practice, the politics, and the language of assassination.