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The latent fear among Middle East observers that President Donald Trump might attack Iran in the final days of his presidency flared on Friday when assassins shot dead the man believed to be responsible for the nuclear weapons program of Iran.
No one has claimed responsibility for the murder of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. Iran’s foreign minister has blamed Israel, whose prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in 2018 about Fakhrizadeh: “Remember that name,” and Israeli officials have declined to comment.
That leaves international observers assuming Israel was behind the attack and wondering if tensions between Iran and the United States and Israel could flare up in the coming weeks.
“Any member of Congress should be concerned about a possible American or Israeli attack on Iran at this time,” said a senior Democratic congressional official who requested anonymity to speak frankly.
Here’s what you need to know about the tensions, what drives the leaders of the three countries, and the scenarios that could unfold in the coming weeks.
What exactly is going on, anyway?
On Friday, according to Iranian media reports, the vehicle in which Fakhrizadeh and his wife were traveling was automatically fired upon and a nearby truck exploded. Some reports said the attack was carried out by remote control.
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The assassination comes against growing indications that Trump and Netanyahu are considering attacking Iran’s nuclear reactor in Natanz.
Just two weeks ago, Trump reportedly contemplated an attack on Iran’s main nuclear site, and Axios reports that Israel is taking steps to be ready for such an attack. Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is leading the charge to step up the application of sanctions on Iran that are designed to be difficult for President-elect Joe Biden to undo.
Last week, Netanyahu met Pompeo and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia. Mossad chief Yossi Cohen accompanied Netanyahu, leading some experts to speculate that the Israelis were briefing the Saudis and Americans before the attack on Fakhrizadeh.
Would Trump really want to attack Iran in the final weeks of his presidency?
Yes and no. On the one hand, Trump and his administration are reportedly trying to start so many diplomatic fires that Biden will have a hard time extinguishing them all. And in Iran, the differences between the two men couldn’t be clearer.
Both are concerned about the accumulation of nuclear material from Iran. But Trump doesn’t want Biden to go back to the Iran nuclear deal that Biden advocated as vice president of Barack Obama, who signed the 2015 deal. The outgoing president is taking steps to obstruct his successor, especially with an intensified sanctions regime. . The most powerful way to achieve a return to the Iran deal would be to launch a conflict with Iran.
The most important step Trump can take is to order an attack on Iran, the kind he allegedly contemplated two weeks ago in Natanz. His assistants convinced him not to.
Trump would not be meeting his own goals by contemplating a strike, said Martin Indyk, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations who has held senior diplomatic posts in Democratic administrations and has been a fierce critic of Trump.
“If you look closely at him, he’s more concerned with establishing his legacy, which is bringing the troops home,” he said. “There is a contradiction between bringing the troops home and a war in the Middle East.”
But Trump has been known to act brash on issues of international concern.
Wait, can he really do that?
If Trump changes his mind and orders a strike, Congress likely has few resources to stop him. Presidents since 2001 have used the Authorization for the Use of Military Force passed by Congress after the September 11 attacks to launch a myriad of attacks in the Middle East. Democrats in recent years have tried to limit that authorization, but those efforts are stalled in the Republican-led Senate.
Trump would transmit a strike order to his defense secretary, who would then forward it to the appropriate commanding officer. In September, Trump fired Mark Esper, a defense secretary who had at times resisted the commander-in-chief’s orders, and replaced him with Christopher Miller, about whom little is known, as part of a broad push to install the loyal at the end of their term.
Neither Miller nor the commanding officer would have standing to refuse to execute a legal order. On the other hand, they are obliged to refuse an illegal order.
Would an order to attack Iran be illegal? International law requires a credible threat as a predicate for an attack and has measures against civilian targets. Iran says it does not have a nuclear weapons program and that its nuclear sites are for civilian use.
If someone in the American chain of command refuses to carry out the attack, its defenders will no doubt counter that Western intelligence agencies have assessed that Iran has sought nuclear weapons in the past and that a nuclear-armed Iran poses a credible threat. . Still, the ensuing back and forth could delay a strike until Biden assumed the presidency.
What does Biden think of all this?
The president-elect’s perspective on Iran centers on a promise to return to the nuclear deal reached under the Obama administration, with improvements. As vice president, Biden was one of the top sellers of the deal, trading sanctions relief for rollbacks from Iran’s nuclear program.
Biden, who will inherit the pushback in addition to the already nagging question of how to handle US relations with Iran, has not commented on the recent events. He “strongly believes in the principle that there should be a single president at a time who guides the foreign policy and national security of our country and is focused on preparing to rule, so we will decline to comment at this time,” Ned Price. a spokesman for the transition said in an email response to a query about Biden’s policy in Iran.
But Biden insiders have been telling congressional staff and foreign policy experts to read closely two op-ed pieces that appeared in the weeks leading up to the election to understand Biden’s intentions in Iran.
One, “There’s a Smarter Way to Be Tough on Iran,” appeared on CNN’s website in September with Biden’s signature. He argues that Iran deserves harsh consequences, but that these are counterproductive if the United States fails to coordinate with European and Asian allies, as Trump has done. Biden also wants Iran to end its adventurism in the region, but also vows to immediately withdraw some sanctions, particularly those affecting coronavirus relief.
The other op-ed, “On Iran, the next administration must break with the past,” was published in Foreign Affairs in August and was co-authored by three people, including two former Iranian policy students from the Obama administration. One of his central arguments is that the next president should consult with Israel and Sunni Arab allies while negotiating the deal, which Obama failed to do, and should hold side talks on non-nuclear issues, including Iran’s missile program and its regional adventurerism.
Does Netanyahu Really Want A War With Israel’s Most Powerful Neighbor?
Again, yes and no. On the one hand, the prime minister is grappling with low popularity – so low that he probably wouldn’t retain power if elections were held today – and a successful attack on Israel’s most formidable enemy could polish his status among Israelis. Netanyahu also knows that any kind of military attack on Iran will be less likely under Biden, so he may be pushing for him to intervene now.
But Israel’s security establishment has been cautious for years of open and all-out conflict with Iran. He stopped Netanyahu’s hand in 2010 and 2011 when he contemplated an attack, and one of the naysayers, then-military chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi, is now the foreign minister in Netanyahu’s cabinet.
Trump has other options if he wants to attack Iran, including assassinations and cyberattacks of the kind that the Netanyahu and Obama administrations worked together in the early years of the Obama administration, and which for a time crippled the uranium enrichment capabilities of Iran.
Netanyahu has the same options as Trump: a deniable lower intensity attack and attacks, such as assassinations and cyber warfare, and the same apparent interest in pushing Iran into a defensive posture that would thwart a return to the nuclear deal.
The Israeli has an additional deterrent that Trump does not have: Netanyahu not only needs to work with an incoming Biden administration, the prime minister would need Biden’s unconditional backing if any action he launches turns into a war.
Biden may be less than willing to fully support Israel if Netanyahu is seen as triggering war. Furthermore, Trump’s determined efforts to paralyze an incoming Biden administration would likely hamper any effective action the United States takes on behalf of Israel.
Bad blood with the incoming president would also hurt Netanyahu’s political position at a precarious time for his leadership, Indyk said.
“He’s thinking of other elections,” Indyk said of Netanyahu, noting that despite his flirtations with an attack on Iran a decade ago, Netanyahu has been among Israel’s prime ministers with the least easy trigger.
“He has always been cautious about the use of force,” Indyk said. “He knows where it starts and he also knows that he doesn’t know where it ends.”
The next few days will be pivotal in revealing how far Trump and Netanyahu plan to go right now, and whether Iran will carry out retribution for Fakhrizadeh’s assassination, which could force its hand. Iran is feeling the economic crisis of sanctions, and the government of President Hassan Rouhani has indicated that it is ready to return to the 2015 nuclear deal.
On the other hand, the assassination has exposed Iran’s internal security apparatus as weak and vulnerable to penetration. Iranian hardliners can pressure the country’s spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to save his face, no matter how much he risks escalation.
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