[ad_1]
G.US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman had just met in Saudi Arabia. Just a few days later, the attackers struck on the outskirts of Tehran. Mohsen Fakhrisadeh, a key figure in Iran’s nuclear weapons program, was killed on Friday by bullets from automatic rifles. It was not the first murder of a nuclear scientist that Iran and US intelligence agents attribute to Israel. But the most important. Fakhrisadeh was considered as important in his field as General Qassem Soleimani, leader of the Quds Special Forces, who had coordinated the Tehran regional militia program and who was killed by a US drone in January.
Jochen Stahnke
Political correspondent for Israel, the Palestinian Territories and Jordan based in Tel Aviv.
In individual cases, the loss of both men represents major personal setbacks for the Tehran regime, especially as they have pulled the strings in their respective areas of business for decades. But just as the activities of the militias in the Middle East that were subservient to Iran have not changed radically since Soleimani’s death, few in Fakhrisadeh’s case believe that his assassination will nullify the nuclear program.
A “senior government representative” of Israel told Israeli broadcaster Kan that it would now be very difficult for Iran to continue its nuclear weapons program. But if one really believed this in Jerusalem, the question arises as to why the blow was struck right now, as it can be assumed that Fakhrisadeh has been observed for years and has not been permanently hidden. In any case, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mentioned his name in a speech in 2018 and had a photo of the Revolutionary Guard physicist distributed.
Maximum pressure on Iran
The timing of the assassination is seen most in Washington’s political calendar. Until Joe Biden takes over the presidency on January 20, Israel will continue to exert maximum pressure on Iran. On the one hand, to weaken Tehran’s economic and military capabilities as much as possible, as long as you have a free hand under Trump. Not without tactical success, as demonstrated by the blow to the Natans centrifuge facility in the summer, also attributed to Israel and which blocked the Iranian nuclear program. On the other hand, the main objective is to ruin the new negotiations announced by Biden on a new nuclear deal.
Every morning our editors classify the most important topics of the day. Relevant, current and fun.
President Donald Trump resigned from the nuclear deal in 2018, just days after Netanyahu unveiled Iran’s so-called “nuclear archive” in Tel Aviv: thousands of documents Mossad agents had brought to Israel from Tehran. With these documents, Israel wanted to prove that Iran had not terminated its nuclear weapons program in 2003, but continued to research it – under the leadership of “Remember this name, Fakhrisadeh,” as Netanyahu said in that apparition. Israel sees the Iranian nuclear program as an existential threat to its own security and tries to delay it in all possible ways. The growing Iranian arsenal of long-range missiles, which Fakhrisadeh is believed to have worked on, only adds to the urgency for Tel Aviv.
Iran should also know the political calendar. Even after Soleimani’s assassination in January, Tehran showed no violent reaction. And it can be assumed that Iran is following a strategy in the final days of the Trump government that an Israeli representative described in the summer as a “stand still approach” until Biden arrives. In any case, the alert level of the Israeli military was not raised over the weekend, as reported by the army radio.
At the same time, former Israeli military intelligence chief Amos Jadlin suspected, the assassination attempt could lead Tehran to a violent response, which in turn provides an excuse for an American-led attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. This would at least delay the start of new nuclear negotiations and make further diplomatic solutions more difficult. Trump is said to have considered a military strike two weeks ago.
Whether Trump’s deliberations or the bombing of Fakhrisadeh, which again showed Iran’s weaknesses in internal security, will now lead Tehran to surrender, or whether hardliners are moving in the direction of rapid weapon development nuclear, it will probably just be time. show after January 20th.
.
[ad_2]
Source link
