The U.S. and Iran are engaged in a conflict that is massive in scale but personal in nature.
The latest Iranian assassination threat arrived last month as a video called “Where to Kill Barron Trump,” promising $10 million for the murder of the U.S. president’s youngest child. Less than 24 hours later, on social media, the State Department re-upped its own $10 million bounty for “information” about five leaders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, including Majid Khademi, the intelligence-office commander.
The State Department offer, part of its Rewards for Justice program, first circulated on March 20. A few weeks later, the Israeli government took credit for killing Khademi in an air strike on Tehran, adding an ominous note to the U.S. government’s decision to recirculate the poster. I asked the State Department whether this was deliberate, so soon after Iran’s announcement of a $10 million bounty for the president’s son. An official declined to comment on “internal deliberations” but noted that information obtained through the Rewards for Justice program can be used to “support a range of U.S. government responses to disrupt threats, consistent with U.S. law and policy.”
Threats of assassination have, from the start, been dark and disruptive subplots of the U.S.-Iran war. Both sides have made the tactic central to their national strategies, though the executions have been rather one-sided, as President Trump and his Israeli allies have overseen the widespread killing of Iran’s senior leadership. The impact on the American government has nonetheless been profound. “We are aware of ongoing threats from the Iranian regime and its proxies and take them extremely seriously,” the State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott told me in a written statement. “We will not hesitate to act to protect U.S. government officials, current and former, and their families.”
