Prague Mohsen Fachrizadeh, a senior Iranian nuclear scientist considered the father of Iran’s nuclear weapons program, was killed in a car on a highway in the suburbs of Tehran. Fachrizadeh was a professor of physics and a brigadier general of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
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He worked on Iran’s nuclear weapons program in the 1990s and until 2003, when the program was officially terminated. In 2018, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Fachrizadeh was a key figure in the ongoing process during which Iran was to secretly acquire nuclear weapons. Israel does not report the assassination, but it is generally assumed that the action was carried out by Israeli agents.
Opinions on the event vary. The Wall Street Journal praises her. A commented Iranian UIA specialist Reuel Marc Gerecht said in a comment that the event, of course, showed the Mossad’s manuscript as well as the destruction of Iran’s nuclear archive in January 2018 or the recent explosion at Iran’s uranium enrichment facility in Natanz. caused by poor maintenance.
According to the author, the American CIA has been neither active nor courageous in this regard in recent decades. Except for the harsh interrogations of al-Qaeda fighters. It’s not just the senior management of the CIA or the political class in Washington. The CIA lacks deployment and missions to a state that threatens you. Only a clear mission sharpens the mind and attracts talent. And Iran’s nuclear weapons do not threaten America, but Israel.
Israel has been infiltrating Iran for more than a decade and has placed surveillance and strike teams in the country. Mossad certainly uses opposition and dissent against the revolutionary regime and apparently has a whole network of valuable agents within the Iranian armed forces and security services. Israel may also benefit from the Kurdish minority in Iran and its motivations. On the other hand, the question is whether the CIA in Iran has any secret agents since the failed hostage rescue in 1980.
Undoubtedly, this is also a clear signal to the incoming Biden administration in Washington. Israel has the means – even without a conventional air strike – to damage Iran’s nuclear program and the revolutionary guards that guard both the nuclear program and the development of ballistic missiles. If Israel can kill the most important people and damage the most guarded equipment, and Iran can answer almost nothing, it greatly damages the reputation and political power of the clerical regime at home.
The US will to intervene in the region is falling sharply. Meanwhile, Israel is pushing Iran into a corner and not only Mossad is active. The Israeli air force is severely damaging Iranian militias in Syria. Tehran has no courage to retaliate.
Biden’s people, formerly Obama’s people, reassured Israelis and their concerns about Iran. But to Israelis, Obama’s nuclear deal and support for supposedly moderate Iranian politicians seemed a hopelessly naive dance.
Mossad’s increased activity in Iran is not just a byproduct of Trump’s sympathies for Israel and antipathies to Iran. It is an example of a new post-American order in the region. The new American administration can shake the hand of the Israelis as it pleases, the Israelis will arrange themselves anyway.
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A completely different conclusion is reached by David Gardner in comments for the Financial Times.
Nor does he doubt that Israel is behind the attack. He has reportedly killed Iranian nuclear scientists before. But that was before Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. After Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the agreement, elected President Joe Biden announced that he would return to the agreement when Iran began to respect enriched uranium limits again.
This goal is complicated in itself, and is now further complicated by Netanyahu, Trump, and their Sunni allies in the Persian Gulf.
Trump’s team is said to be doing what it can to prevent Biden from returning to diplomacy. Trump is reportedly considering air strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, and US Secretary of State Pompeo has arranged a meeting between Saudi Crown Prince bin Salman and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. According to Gardner, it was not only a matter of creating and consolidating a united front against Tehran, but also against Biden and his Iranian policy.
According to Gardner, the abandonment of the Iranian agreement has led to Iran enriching twelve times more uranium today than under the treaty. The assassination cannot stop Iran’s nuclear science and will only strengthen hardliners in the Iranian regime.
JM Monitor Note:
We don’t really understand the comments. If Israel and the Sunni states in the Gulf feel more threatened by a nuclear agreement with Iran than without it, then what is the point? Does it satisfy the ego of their creators?
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