Shooting the Pope and assassination politics.

Leaders of the former Soviet Union were behind the assassination attempt against Pope John Paul II in 1981, an Italian parliamentary investigative commission said in a report.

A final draft of the report, which is due to be presented to parliament later this month, was made available to Reuters on Thursday by the commission president, Senator Paolo Guzzanti.

"This commission believes, beyond any reasonable doubt, that the leadership of the Soviet Union took the initiative to eliminate Pope John Paul," the report said.

Comment:

There was little doubt in our mind at the time that the Soviets were behind the attempt. We had no idea that an investigation was taking place at this late date.

We're ambivalent about assassination politics. Decapitating your opposition (in war or by assassination) seems to be an effective strategy at first glance. Shooting down Adm. Yamamoto's plane undoubtedly hurt Japan. Killing Hitler, Stalin, Castro, and Pol Pot would have been serious blows to the political systems that they headed or do head. The death of the latter beasts would certainly have been gratifying from the standpoint of simple revenge or simple justice. Take your pick.

However, whether the elimination of any one of these people really would have led to a permanent change is debatable or perhaps simply unknowable. None of these people lived or lives in a vacuum and who is to say that the system that spawned such monsters would not immediately serve up another leader equally at home in such a system and also highly adapted to its pathologies.

The likelihood that a replacement will surface is, therefore, probably the best argument against decapitation. Political decapitation, at any rate.

In the case of Yamamoto and military decapitation, he seems to have been an intelligent and even honorable man, so far as we know. He was not, moreover, the only competent Admiral in the Japanese navy. However, given the imperative of war, namely, that one more dead enemy is always an improvement, there would be no reason NOT to get rid of a senior officer, even if he had many peers.

The repeated Israeli attacks on Hamas leaders are an effective and acceptable strategy of war decapitation. No Hamas leader (prior to the electoral victory of Hamas) could be said to be anything but a combatant and thus a proper target for attack. Maybe there's a platoon of lawyers at the State Department that could prove us wrong in heartbeat. Osama Bin Laden and his senior subordinates would also be fair game. Individual terrorists, too.

Revenge is sweet, though it is fashionable in some quarters to decry such sentiments. We do not move in such circles.

Once Hamas took over the government, we think the better argument is to refrain from targeting the leaders (although we have quoted with the approval the quite logical statements of former head of Israel's Shin Bet, Avi Dichter, that just 'cause you're a terrorist and you get elected to some office doesn't change the fact that you're still a terrorist). In the case of Hamas, it's clear that the electorate has conferred a certain moral status on it, and getting rid of individual Hamas leaders risks opening a can of worms. Great to get rid of Mr. X; not so great to deal with an angry electorate.

This was probably the danger for the Soviets in attacking the Pope. It had to be a secret attack of course, and this itself diluted any political message or warning they might have intended. Plus, even if the Soviets didn't care about "sending a message," the Catholic Church would have served up any number of new Popes and a huge number of Catholics world wide would have gone ballistic. Not to mention a huge number of other people.

However, odious individual leaders might be, it is probably better to treat political leaders as diplomats are treated. On balance, there is more to gain from keeping channels of communication open. This may also just be good sense because acceptance of a convention of no assassination might have the long-term effect of keeping nation states from mounting nation-state-size efforts to bump off other world leaders.

The right question should thus not be "Do we want to get rid of Mr. X?" but "How badly do we want to do anything about solving the problem of 'Iran' or 'Venezuela'?" If the U.S. is not willing to take on a major effort like that, it's better for it to rely on the now famous Col. Bunny Sharia Enjoyment Strategy, or local variant.

Finally, there's the Doctrine of Unintended Consequences. According to this doctrine, assassinating Hitler might have led to a rationalization of Germany's policies and military operations. Hitler's obsession with Stalingrad and his hatred of the Slavs led, respectively, to huge military losses and a missed opportunity to tap oceans of anti-Soviet feeling in the Soviet Union. Hitler's continued existence thus may have ensured a shorter war.

"Hat tip to Jay." By Jay on 3/2/06 (link added).