TEHRAN - Veteran U.S. diplomat Joseph Nye has said U.S. President Donald Trump revoked an executive order signed by President Gerald Ford by ordering the Pentagon to assassinate General Qassem Soleimani.

“By assassinating of a high official in a third country when you are not at war, you are revoking what Gerald Ford had done after Vietnam which says we are not to get into business of assassination. I don’t think we really want to drop that norm,” he told CNN in an interview aired on Saturday.

“What happens for example if Secretary [Mike] Pompeo goes to Baghdad and somebody shoots him? We’d have no right to complain if we’ve shot Soleimani.”

He noted, “We gave up assassination after the Vietnam war after Gerald Ford signed an executive order. I am not sure that Trump thought through what it means if you drop that moral principle.”

General Soleimani was assassinated in a U.S. airstrike in Baghdad on January 3.

The U.S. Senate passed a legislation on Thursday to limit President Donald Trump’s ability to wage war against Iran.

According to AP, the measure, authored by Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., says Trump must win approval from Congress before engaging in further military action against Iran.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed two pieces of a legislation on January 30, seeking to limit Trump’s authority to go to war with Iran.

“The Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the power to declare war. And with President Trump taking steps toward dangerous conflict with Iran - without any consultation with Congress - we need to reassert the responsibility given to us,” Democratic Representative Eliot Engel, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said in support of the legislation.

In an interview with Geo News published on January 25, Engel criticized Trump for beating drums of war against Iran. 

“The United States, frankly, has been involved in too many wars in the last twenty years. And, I think it’s time to back off and not have a perpetual war,” he said.

He also called assassination of Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani “an ill-advised action”.

Many members of Congress, including some Republicans, have been pushing the administration for more information about assassination of Soleimani, Reuters reported.

Trump did not inform Congress about the drone strike until after it took place and then, according to many lawmakers, his administration held back too much information about the reason for the strike and its legal justification.

NA/PA