The World Is Waiting For Iran’s Next Move – NRK Urix – Foreign News And Documentaries

On November 27, the professor of nuclear physics was killed on a highway outside the city of Absard, east of Tehran.

The first reports were that Fakhrizadeh’s car had exploded and that a group of armed men opened fire and killed him. The head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council claims that the killer weapons were remotely controlled via satellites.

Regardless of the method of assassination: Few doubt that Israel and the intelligence organization Mossad carried out the operation, despite the fact that no one has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Why is everyone so sure that Israel is behind this?

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has a clear motive.

Netanyahu is convinced that Iran will develop nuclear weapons, which he sees as a great threat to Israel. Therefore, all attacks that could slow down Iran’s nuclear program are in their interest.

Netanyahu hates the nuclear deal the international community signed with Iran in 2015. To Netanyahu’s great joy, Trump canceled the deal. But now Trump is dating and Netanyahu is upset at the idea of ​​Joe Biden restoring the nuclear deal again in 2021.

Several Israeli sources have confirmed to The New York Times that Israel was behind the liquidation. One of them believed that the world “should thank Israel for the attack.”

Israel is also behind a string of killings of Iranian nuclear physicists a few years ago, according to Haaretz.

In 2018, Israeli agents broke into a warehouse where they stole large amounts of material on Iran’s nuclear secrets. Soon after, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh’s name appeared in a presentation Netanyahu made to describe Iran’s threat to the outside world.

“Remember this name,” Netanyahu said, referring to Fakhrizadeh.

Did President Trump order the assassination?

Donald Trump also has a motive, international analysts say. He hates the nuclear deal, in part because it was one of President Barack Obama’s greatest diplomatic victories. Trump wants to tear down what Obama built and make it harder for Joe Biden to revive the deal.

By provoking and humiliating Iran, Trump hopes Iran will retaliate against the attack. Then the tension will rise and Iran will appear aggressive. It will create a bad climate before Biden’s team contacts Iranian negotiators about the deal.

The nuclear deal had broad international support, with the exception of three actors who are all highly critical of Iran:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, United States President Donald Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.

Six days before the Iran liquidation, four men gathered in Saudi Arabia: US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Mohammed Bin Salman and Benjamin Netanyahu, who had Mossad chief Yossi Cohen with them for the occasion. .

Did Trump use the Mossad as a hit man?

This is Mossad’s specialty: targeted assassinations. And Israel does not hide it. In the Netflix documentary “Inside The Mossad,” the filmmaker wonders whether, for example, it’s okay to kill democratically elected politicians in other countries.

“Do you have a problem with that?” A former Mossad chief responds.

Helping Trump with an assumption hit, Netanyahu hits two birds with one stone:

He gets rid of the nuclear physicist he had at the top of the list. Plus, you’re returning a favor to Donald Trump.

One service for another?

President Trump has gifts from the east over Prime Minister Netanyahu.

Trump moved the US embassy to Jerusalem. President and son-in-law Jared Kushner persuaded the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain to establish diplomatic relations with Israel. This was a great diplomatic victory for Netanyahu.

Six days before the murder of the nuclear physicist, the United States released the spy Jonathan Pollard. He was sentenced to life in prison in the United States for revealing the identities of several hundred CIA agents to Mossad and leaked classified documents to Israel.

– There is only seven weeks until Trump has to leave the White House, and by leaving he can set the world on fire … and Benjamin Netanyahu is more than willing to lend him a lighter, writes commentator Noa Landau in Haaretz.

Why kill a gray-haired physics teacher with glasses?

Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was nobody. The professor of nuclear physics was seen as the father of the secret nuclear program. Foreign Policy magazine ranked Fakhrizadeh as one of the 500 most powerful people on the planet.

He fought in the eight-year war against Iraq and has been a member of the Revolutionary Guards for decades, as have many in Iran’s most powerful circles. To IranWire, a former deputy minister says he met Fakhrizadeh in 1994, when they worked together on a “defense program.”

– None of the previous murders of nuclear physicists has been as bad as this one. The traitors in Revolusjonsgarden and the reckoning must answer for this: How can they steal the nuclear program archive in broad daylight? How can they kill our best scientist like this?

How does the Mossad manage to recruit the Iranians?

The Iranian clerical regime is unpopular with large sections of the population. With the collapse of the nuclear deal and the suffocating new US sanctions, the economy has collapsed. The value of the rijal in Iranian currency has fallen like a stone, people’s savings have almost disappeared.

Widespread corruption at the top and in the state apparatus, miserable financial management, and lack of jobs and hopelessness lead some to the temptation when Mossad knocks on the door.

Israelis can offer a significant amount of money, travel, and citizenship in a Western country. If foreign powers attract with money and a possible new start in life, some may choose to seize the opportunity.

How can Iran respond?

Iran’s outstretched arm, Hezbollah, may attack Israel.

The Lebanese militia group has influence and has attacked Israel in the past. But Hezbollah knows the price could be high, as Israel could bomb Beirut again. It happened in 2006, when Israel wanted to tell the Lebanese government that all Lebanese would be punished if Hezbollah attacked Israel from Lebanon.

Iran could attack US bases or interests in Iraq. After the United States liquidated General Qasem Soleimani on January 3 of this year on Trump’s orders, Iran cautiously responded by attacking a US base in Iraq. The base was notified in advance and no one died. Iran did not want an escalation of the conflict.

Iran can operate in the Strait of Hormuz, where much of the world’s crude oil is transported and where the United States has warships.

Iran could attack the Golan Heights annexed by Israel from Syria.

Iran can respond in kind, with targeted assassination.

Israel has asked government and defense apparatus employees to cancel planned trips to the Gulf countries with which Israel has just normalized relations. Additionally, Israelis traveling to the region are asked not to share information about travel in the region on social media, according to Haaretz.

Why is President Hassan Rouhani hesitating?

For Rouhani, the murder is a humiliation and a provocation, especially since it is the second murder of a very central Iranian this year. But it is also a trap.

Netanyahu and Trump want Iran to strike back hard.

Yesterday, incoming President Joe Biden said his administration will lift sanctions against Iran if Iran abides by the requirements of the nuclear deal.

Yesterday, the Iranian parliament considered a proposal to stop working with the IAEA’s international inspectors and increase uranium enrichment. Both cases can be renegotiated. It cannot carry out an attack on the Israeli port city of Haifa, as the Iranian newspaper Kayhan suggests.

President Rouhani knows he can earn more by staying calm in Trump’s final weeks in the White House.

If Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei agrees, Iran is withholding its weapons, while Iran awaits incoming President Biden with cautious optimism.

Iran does not want to be fooled by the Trump and Netanyahu games.

– We do not want to fall into that trap, says government spokesman Ali Rabiei.