History Has Always Produced Assassins. But What Happens When Governments Begin Legitimizing Political Murder?
By the JAFAJ Editorial Board
“Civilizations are not judged by how they behave during peace. They are judged by the rules they refuse to abandon during conflict.”
JaFaJ Editorial Board
History is often remembered by the wars it fought, the treaties it signed, and the empires it built. Yet some of civilization’s greatest turning points began not with armies on the battlefield, but with the death of a single individual. Assassinations have redirected history, reshaped governments, and altered the destiny of nations. They remind us that one act of political violence can echo across generations.
On the Ides of March in 44 B.C., Julius Caesar entered the Roman Senate believing he would debate the future of the Republic. Instead, he was surrounded by men he considered allies and stabbed to death. The Roman Republic died with him.
Three centuries later, King Philip II of Macedon was assassinated during a royal celebration. His death unexpectedly elevated his twenty-year-old son, Alexander, to the throne. History would remember him as Alexander the Great, whose conquests transformed the ancient world and reshaped civilizations across three continents.
More than a thousand years later, Archbishop Thomas Becket was murdered inside Canterbury Cathedral after a bitter struggle with King Henry II over the limits of royal authority. Whether intended or not, words spoken at the highest levels of power inspired an act whose consequences reverberated throughout medieval Europe.
In 1610, King Henry IV of France was assassinated by a religious extremist, depriving Europe of one of its most influential statesmen at a pivotal moment in history.
From ancient Rome to medieval England, from the monarchies of Europe to the birth of modern democracies, history repeatedly demonstrates that the assassination of a single leader can redirect the course of civilization. Wars have begun, peace agreements have collapsed, governments have fallen, and entire political systems have been transformed because one individual was removed from history at precisely the wrong moment. Political assassination has never been merely the death of a person. More often than not, it has marked the beginning of a new chapter for nations—and sometimes for the world.
- Nearly nineteen centuries after Caesar, Abraham Lincoln was murdered only days after preserving the Union, leaving a fractured nation to confront Reconstruction without the leader who had held it together.
- In Sarajevo, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand ignited the chain reaction that became the First World War.
- John F. Kennedy’s assassination altered the trajectory of American politics.
- Yitzhak Rabin’s murder dealt a devastating blow to hopes for peace in the Middle East.
- Shinzo Abe’s assassination forced Japan to confront the vulnerability of even one of the world’s safest democracies.
History remembers these events because they changed nations, and history remembers something else as well.
They were almost universally regarded as tragedies—not as acceptable instruments of statecraft.
- No civilized nation celebrated Lincoln’s murder as legitimate diplomacy.
- No democracy concluded that killing John F. Kennedy represented a valid political argument.
- No responsible government openly declared that assassination should become a recognized tool of foreign policy.
- For centuries—even among bitter enemies—there remained an unspoken understanding that some boundaries should never be crossed.
That understanding now appears to be under increasing pressure.
The Difference Between Terrorism and State Legitimization
For more than two thousand years, one principle quietly survived despite wars, revolutions, terrorism, and ideological conflict. Political murder occurred. Governments were accused of orchestrating it. Intelligence services were suspected of covert operations. Proxy organizations carried out attacks.
Yet governments almost always denied involvement.
That denial mattered.
It reflected an understanding that openly advocating the assassination of a foreign leader violated one of the unwritten rules upon which international relations depended. Even when governments secretly crossed those lines, they rarely claimed doing so as legitimate policy.
The distinction between terrorism and violence publicly encouraged—or even debated—by institutions connected to a government is therefore more than legal.
It is civilizational.
One reflects the actions of criminals or extremists.
The other risks eroding the norms that restrain governments themselves.
Recent reports concerning Iran deserve attention because they describe something different: public rhetoric directed at a foreign leader, reported legislative discussions concerning rewards for killing that leader, and reported state-affiliated messaging extending threats to members of that leader’s family.
Whether these reports ultimately reflect official policy, proposals that never become law, or propaganda rather than operational intent, they raise a larger question than any single country.
What happens when ideas once considered beyond the boundaries of civilized conduct begin entering mainstream political discourse?
The Last Boundary
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of these reports is not that a political leader was threatened. Presidents, prime ministers, kings, and generals have always understood that public service carries extraordinary personal risk.
The deeper concern is the apparent expansion of threats to family members.
- Children do not vote.
- They do not write legislation.
- They do not command armies.
- They do not negotiate treaties.
- They do not decide questions of war and peace.
- Their only connection to politics is the family into which they happened to be born.
For generations, civilized societies instinctively recognized that simple truth.
Families remained among the last places where political conflict was expected to stop.
Not because treaties required it, but because civilization did.
If We Allow This to Continue…What’s Next?
This is the question every democracy should be asking.
- Not whether one supports Donald Trump.
- Not whether one opposes Iran.
- Not whether today’s geopolitical disputes are justified.
Those debates will continue.
The larger question is whether the rules themselves are beginning to disappear.
If publicly encouraging violence against one foreign president becomes politically acceptable…
What prevents similar rhetoric against another?
If today’s target is a president… Who becomes tomorrow’s target?
- A prime minister?
- A cabinet minister?
- A Supreme Court justice?
- A diplomat?
- A scientist?
- A journalist?
- A business leader?
- A spouse?
- A child?
History demonstrates that dangerous precedents rarely remain confined to their original target.
- They expand.
- First the exception.
- Then the justification.
- Eventually the norm.
Civilizations seldom abandon their principles in a single dramatic moment.
They lose them one compromise at a time.
What Should Democracies Do?
The response cannot depend upon ideology or nationality.
If one government publicly encourages violence against foreign leaders, the international response should be the same regardless of who the intended victim may be.
Democracies should reaffirm a simple principle: publicly advocating or rewarding violence against foreign leaders—or against their families—falls outside accepted international conduct.
Diplomatic protests, targeted sanctions against responsible individuals, enhanced intelligence cooperation, and renewed international commitments to protecting the families of public officials should all remain available policy tools where appropriate under domestic and international law.
The issue is not simply protecting one leader.
It is protecting the rules that protect every leader.
JAFAJ Editorial
Ultimately, this debate is not about Donald Trump, nor is it solely about Iran. It is about whether the international community still believes that some lines should never be crossed.
Political assassination has existed for more than two thousand years.
Civilized societies never eliminated it, they condemned it and they isolated those who practiced it.
Most importantly, they refused to normalize it.
If that restraint weakens—if governments, legislatures, or state-affiliated institutions begin publicly legitimizing violence against foreign leaders or extending threats to their families—the consequences will extend far beyond any single administration or nation.
History teaches that civilizations rarely collapse because they suddenly abandon their principles.
They decline when behavior that once shocked the conscience slowly becomes familiar.
Every generation inherits boundaries it did not create.
Every generation must decide whether those boundaries remain worth defending.
History will not remember the moment those boundaries disappeared.
It will remember what happened after they did.
And that is the question every nation should be asking itself today:
If we allow this to continue…what comes next?