Justification?

When I watch some of the Sunday news shows, you hear explanations for certain action by this administration.  They are frequently illogical and condescending to both the American public and sometimes the world.

The recent assassination of an Iranian general has no real legal justification.  We are not at war with Iran and while we may attribute certain action by Militias in Iraq and Syria to Iranian influence to hold a high official in the Iranian government personally responsible would mean our officials can be held responsible for acts performed by militias we support.

If he was indeed planning an "imminent" attack on this country or our citizens it might be justification, but such an attack would need to be actually in the works and imminent.

It should also be noted that the attack was done without internal notification and on a third party countries territory.

No matter how bad he might have been, and he clearly was, he was still an official of a country we are not at war with.

The danger is that our ability to simply kill actors from a distance adds a new dimension to this sort of assassination.  Had we at least accused him internationally of war crimes we may have had some justification.

Repercussions are already started and they are likely to escalate.  That is not the reason the assassination was wrong, it is wrong because it is essentially a violation of "thou shall not kill".

Whatever exceptions we have applied to that, none of them seem to apply here.