Forget About Everything Else...

[hazard]

no way such an august body of statesmen debating whether or not to enter a conflict that was inevitable could go wrong either, just ask the Spartans.

Actually, it's a pretty useful restraint on executive power given the great cost that comes with armed conflict, given that soldiers are very expensive indeed to equip, to train and to deploy. And that's just the immediate financial burden, the diplomatic and political cost as well as the moral dangers that come with violent conflict are something that you preferably take a good, long time examining to see if there's perhaps another, less violent way to gain the same benefit at a lower cost instead.

look, i know you guys don't like Trump, you cant help it. But think for a damn minute about what the head of Iran's Terrorist command was probably doing in Iraq, especially since he was meeting with a group of Iraqi terrorists who had already killed an american contractor and then assaulted the US embassy because of the reprisal airstrikes. IT WASNT GOING TO BE ANYTHING NICE! thinking otherwise is just deluding yourselves. Furthermore, senior officials have ALWAYS been legitimate targets, the main reason we like to take them alive is that it tends to kill the enemy's desire to fight faster.

Frankly, assassinating him was one thing. Dangerous since he had the direct backing of Iran, but it's one of those things that can be handled in backroom diplomatic dealings.

Gloating about it though... well. That's a good way to invite escalation. Especially when you do it in public, or on international television.

Isn't going after cultural sites illegal? Would that include museums, or mosques or what?

Not exactly. Cultural sites are protected (including religious structures) because those are likely areas for civilians to seek shelter during combat, but only so long as there are no legitimate military targets there. Bombing a religious structure is illegal, but bombing it when there's active military personnel gathered there is legal, and I think that's true even if they're there for a religious service.

Because, you know, those are enemy combatants. And those are valid targets. It'd be a different things if those are all wounded enemy combatants and or otherwise hors de combat.