Welcome to the advisory opinions podcast. This is the dispatches David French with the dispatches Sarah Isker and we're coming to you on a very slow news day.

Very slow start to the new year. Of course that's not possible last night we had the really stunning news of the targeted strike. I'm not going to call it an assassination for reasons that we'll talk about the targeted strike of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps leader that's Al Quds Force and his name is Sulamani. Sulamani.

You'll see it pronounced and spelled multiple different ways but one thing you need to know about him is he was one of the world's most feared terrorist leaders. If not the world's most feared terrorist leader he was perhaps the most powerful terrorist leader in the world.

The most powerful terrorist leader in the world is Al-Baghdadi. He directed Iranian military operations and terrorist operations across the Middle East.

He was the most feared terrorist leader in the world for years. His Iranian the militias that he backed and supported and the operations he backed and supported are conservatively estimated at being responsible for the deaths of more than 600 Americans.

Including one man that I knew and I rack that I served with in Iraq when his Iranian back she militias rose up against us in the late spring of 2008 during my deployment. We mainly fought Al Qaeda and Iraq but for about five harrowing weeks we were also fighting the Iranian back she militia.

I want to get your take you touched on this briefly but maybe I just want to emphasize it. There are those who were comparing this to killing Osama bin Laden. I take it that you do not even see this as a comparison.

I would say it's hard to get the relative significance on the one hand Osama bin Laden hit the United States harder than anybody ever has.

I mean thousands of Americans almost 3000 Americans were killed on 911. Thousands more have died in Afghanistan fighting al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

I don't look at it as Osama bin Laden was less significant and killing Osama bin Laden was less significant. It was just very strategically different and Soleimani is extremely significant in his own right.

I think one of the differences here is Soleimani was the actual arm of a government of a sovereign nation that was engaged in not just operations against the US but across the region he has regional significance but what might make this.

I've also seen this compared then to killing a US vice president.

I would say a US secretary of defense maybe would be more apt. This is not somebody I mean Iran as long as Islamic Republic is going to be led by clerics. So you know it's not like this was a guy who was in the line of succession and Iran.

But you know killing a secretary of defense killing. You know somebody like a general patrace at the height of his powers.

I mean very very very very very significant in a person of unique diabolical talents. I mean this is somebody who is not necessarily easy to easily replaceable although the Iranians will slot in someone to replace him of course just like we did.

Right right. And so as far as his his diabolical talents. He may not be easily replaceable but it's not like Iran's strategy in the Middle East at least we don't think it's going to radically change I don't think their course of action will radically change the there's a lot of questions about retaliation.

As some have noted if you were to cast a villain who needed to fit under Middle Eastern bad guy you might cast exactly this person. What you looked the part. Yeah. At least in pictures you know in some of the photos where he looks particularly menacing I want to get to what I think is the heart of the question today.

Which is you started out by saying you weren't ready to call this we're willing to call this an assassination. I want you to talk about some of the legal underpinnings of killing a and arm as you said of a foreign government this was not a non governmental terrorist entity as Osama bin Laden was this was a member of the government and you know right before we started we were talking a little bit about the West Wing.

I was at least you not so much I however compare everything to the Westings of season three of the West Wing President Bartlett kill Sharif and they talk about.

Regans executive order not to commit assassinations of government figures and why that's different so if you could walk me through season three of the West Wing.

Now why why do you not. Walk us through some of the legal side of this and if you want to touch upon this now or we can do this later the significance of it being a drone attack.

Well okay so first regarding the West Wing I never seen more than one full episode of the West Wing.

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