[ad_1]
Those hoping for a semblance of calm in the Middle East in the final days of Donald Trump’s presidency have been rudely awakened by the assassination of Iran’s top nuclear scientist. Iranian leaders immediately blamed Israel for the murder of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh last week. Israel generally does not deny or confirm such coups, preferring ambiguity to responsibility, while reinforcing the mystique of its secret services. But it’s hard to imagine another state carrying out such a bold attack. And the two leaders he serves the most are Trump and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a like-minded hawk on Iran.
The assassination increases tensions in the Middle East after months of relative calm, and runs the risk of making it much more difficult for Joe Biden to fulfill his promise to start negotiations with Iran and rejoin the 2015 nuclear deal if Tehran agrees to rejoin. fully comply with the agreement. Both Trump and Netanyahu seem hell-bent on doing everything they can to ruin the chances of the US president-elect before he takes office in the White House.
Since his electoral defeat, the fear in the region has been that Trump could lash out at Iran or its allies in a farewell shot that would frustrate hopes of bringing Tehran back to the table. Last month, he reportedly asked senior advisers for options to attack Iranian nuclear facilities, before being dissuaded from taking military action. But if Mr. Netanyahu wanted to order an attack on the Islamic regime, when is it better to do so than when one of the most anti-Iranian and pro-Israel American presidents is still in office?
Trump has already done everything he can to destroy the nuclear deal Tehran signed with world powers and isolate Iran after unilaterally withdrawing the United States from the deal and imposing the harshest of sanctions regimes. However, their “maximum pressure” strategy has failed.
It is true that Washington’s measures have driven Iran’s economy into a deep recession. But they have inflamed a volatile region. They have empowered the Iranian hardliners and their militant proxies, while exposing the vulnerabilities of the US Gulf partners, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
While Iran had significantly reduced its nuclear activity under the agreement, in addition, Trump’s actions led Tehran to expand its atomic program. Today, his arsenal of enriched uranium is 12 times greater than before he abandoned the deal.
However, Iran has remained in the deal with the backing of the UK, France, Germany, China and Russia, the other signatories to the deal. While acknowledging the flaws in the nuclear deal and sharing criticism of Iran’s actions, European powers have seen it as the best tool to prevent a regional arms race and to use it as a platform on which to build any future negotiations.
The EU rightly condemned the murder of Fakhrizadeh as a “criminal act”. European signatories must now step up their diplomatic efforts to create an environment conducive to increasing the chances of dialogue between Tehran and Washington once the Biden administration takes office. The Iranian regime has vowed revenge for Fakhrizadeh’s murder, but must avoid being incited to retaliate.
The nuclear deal failed to address many of the concerns that Western and regional powers harbor about Iran’s evil actions, from militias to missiles. But it provides a much better starting point than Trump’s stormy years, during which the region perpetually feared it was on the brink of war. Biden’s task was already very complex. This reckless and dangerous killing only reinforces the need for dialogue between all parties.
