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London – “Al-Quds Al-Arabi”:
In a joint report by “The New York Times” correspondents David Kirkpatrick, Ronen Bergman and Farnaz Fasaihi, they said the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh revealed Iran’s weaknesses, which are trying to find ways to respond. After a year of painful strikes, Tehran faces painful options: respond to the demands of militants calling for decisive strikes, or wait and deal with the next US administration, Joseph Biden.
The report began by talking about a daring Israeli Mossad assault on a fortified warehouse in Tehran, where Mossad agents stole 5,000 classified documents about Iran’s nuclear program. Four weeks later, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared at a press conference and asked those who saw and attended his conference to “remember the name” which means Fakhri Zadeh, who became the latest victim of a bold escalation of covert operations designed to torture the Iranian leadership and remind it of its weakness.
The report referred to the operation on Friday in which the atomic scientist died when his convoy intercepted a car bomb and exploded, then armed men attacked him, where they left him in the street to die. The newspaper believes that Fakhri Zadeh’s murder is the latest in a series of mysterious killings that included poisoning, car bombs, close-up killings, robberies and sabotage, against the Islamic Republic.
All of these operations were aimed at vital scientists or institutions linked to the Iranian nuclear program, and the Iranians and Americans attributed them to Tehran’s greatest enemy, Israel, whose leaders boast of the success of the operations without admitting responsibility for them.
But Iran did not suffer operations and attacks as it did in 2020, in which Qassem Soleimani was killed in a US raid on his convoy after leaving Baghdad international airport, a raid facilitated by Israeli intelligence. In August, Iran was humiliated when an al Qaeda leader was assassinated in the streets of Tehran, this time at the request of the United States.
Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst and fellow at the Brookings Institution, says that it has rarely happened that a country conducts operations within the borders of its enemies and acts without fear of responsibility. He said: “This is a precedent … and there is no sign that the Iranians will confront it.”
With the assassination of its chief nuclear scientist on Friday, Iran faces questions about its weaknesses, a process of cleaning up its security institutions and getting rid of agents, as well as how to respond. In addition to the latest insult, Iran has suffered devastating economic sanctions or what the Donald Trump administration has called a “maximum pressure” campaign. Iran’s leaders hope that the Biden administration will take action of some kind to take the kiss and ease the pressure on him. The president-elect promised to return to the nuclear deal that lifted sanctions on Iran in exchange for curbing its nuclear activities.
As for the pragmatists in Iran, the remaining two months for Trump in the White House are not adequate for a confrontational response. However, some leaders in Iran openly admit that their enemies in the United States and Israel will seize the current moment to attack Tehran and increase pressure on their leaders, who face calls for revenge and others hope for better relations with the next American administration.
“From today until Trump leaves the White House, this is the most dangerous stage for Iran,” wrote a former Iranian Ministry of Culture official, Muhammad Hossein Khoshuq. He added that retaliation against Israel or Netanyahu’s main ally, the United States, would give Iran’s enemies in the region a chance to “create a situation” where Biden cannot return to the nuclear deal.
Militants in Iran, by contrast, say that Fakhrizadeh’s assassination demonstrated that restraint gave Iran’s enemies a chance to strike. “If you did not respond to this level of terrorism, they may have repeated their work knowing that Iran will not respond,” said conservative analyst Fuad Ezadi. And he added: “It is clear that there is a problem when you see that these things are repeated.”
What confirmed this situation was the decision of the Iranian government to grant Fakhri Zadeh, despite the fact that the Iranians did not know him, a solemn funeral fit for a hero, and to bury him in a cemetery that enjoys reverence in the country. Videos of senior state officials and clergymen were broadcast as they stood in front of the world’s shroud, which was draped in the Iranian flag, where the face of the world appeared, abandoning the tradition in which the dead are covered from head to toe.
Israel adopted a policy of targeted assassinations to curb efforts towards building an effective nuclear program and targeted Egyptian and Iraqi nuclear scientists in the 1960s and 1970s. Iran was accused of being behind the murder of one of its scientists when fell into his laboratory in 2007 after being poisoned.
This was followed by a series of deadly attacks from 2010 to 2012 in which several Iranian scientists were killed, for which Tehran accused Israel of being responsible. In one such incident, a motorcycle parked in front of a house was detonated, killing a scientist who was closing his garage.
In other incidents, three scientists were killed while in their cars from shots fired from motorcycles driving alongside them. Riedel says Israel has a track record of success against Iran; Due to his focus on the sources of spying on his enemies there.
In addition to this, Israel developed strong relations with Iran’s neighbors and used their lands as a stage for surveillance and recruitment, especially in Baku, Azerbaijan.
In the last war in Nagorno Karabakh, Israel provided military support and drones to Azerbaijan, which it used in the war with the Armenians. Israel has also targeted Persian and Persian-speaking Jews to make connections within Iran or analyze messages that have been tapped.
Riedel added that Israel was able to recruit several Iranian agents. He adds that Fakhrizadeh’s assassination is an indication of Israel’s return to assassination campaigns after an eight-year hiatus. And by saying: “I think it indicates that the process is underway or under way.”
A senior Israeli official who was involved in Fakhrizadeh’s prosecution said Israel will continue to target the Iranian nuclear program as best it can. Adding that Fakhrizadeh and the nuclear program are so dangerous that the world should thank Israel for its work.
In Iran, these assassination incidents led to the need to emphasize the uprooting of the roots of employment within the security system. In his first response to the operation, the Supreme Leader of the Republic, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, asked to prioritize “investigating this crime and unequivocally punishing the perpetrators.”
The militants accused the government of Hassan Rouhani, who is seen as a pragmatist and calls for negotiations with the United States, and held it responsible for the security breach. “The night is long and we have woken up,” said Hossein Dehghan, one of the commanders of the Revolutionary Guard and an adviser to Khamenei who is attending the presidential elections. He said in a tweet: “We will come like thunder over the heads of those responsible for the martyr’s murder, and we will make them repent.”
For his part, Rouhani said his country will exercise what he called “strategic patience” or what his critics described as “waiting for Biden.” He said: “We will respond in a timely manner” and “all enemies should know that the great Iranian people are brave and honorable and will respond to the criminal act.”
But the only beneficiaries of this work are militants in Iran, says Sanam Wakil of Chatham House in London. Since Biden’s election, the hardliners have begun to push to avoid any negotiations with the new US administration. “An incident like this strengthens the militants,” Wakil said, “because they will postpone negotiations until the Iranian elections, which is what they are working for.”
