AhlulBayt News Agency: The assassination of Professor Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, another defense and nuclear scientist of Iran, has hit the global media’s news headlines on Friday evening and keeps reverberating to the moment.
The Israeli regime and the US, with a long record of such actions against Iran’s scientific and technological developments especially when it comes to nuclear program, stand as the leading suspects.
But what are the goals and implications of such an assassination?
Iran’s wise play in Trump’s nuclear gamble
One of the main aims of the assassination of the top Iranian scientist was, certainly, to influence Iran nuclear program’s developments after the 2015 nuclear deal.
When Donald Trump took the office at the White House in 2017, he openly talked about reaching a new agreement with Iran. Insisting that the new accord should cover other issues like missile program and Iran’s regional influence and not remain purely nuclear, Trump finally withdrew from the 2015 deal with Tehran that included six world powers– the US, China, Russia, Germany, France, and Britain. Trump immediately embarked on what he called “crippling sanctions” and “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran. The top objective was to bring Iran to the negotiating table to disband its nuclear program and forge a breathing room for the Israeli regime in the regional developments as the latter felt the risks of Iran’s presence next to its borders.
But Trump’s pressure campaign only delivered the reverse. Not only Tehran did not give in to Washington strains but also it found a room to legally and according to the terms of the deal, officially known as Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), reduce an important part of its commitments to the accord but also it managed to take advantage of the US isolation at least in the nuclear issue and promote its economic ties with various countries to weather the initial economic tensions of the US-imposed embargo. While the US in the beginning of the reinstatement of the sanctions promised to force down the Iranian oil exports to zero, Tehran now exports 1 million oil barrels a day.
Desperate Trump, who lost the presidential race to the Democrats, finds himself a loser in a big gamble. This was the same gamble that broke the black propagandistic atmosphere on the global arena against Iran’s nuclear developments and proved Tehran’s argument about the Western untrustworthiness for provision of nuclear fuel and science, both domesticized by Iran. Not only Iran has not cut its regional weight and outreach but also it built up pressures against the US presence both in Syria and Iraq. To West’s frustration, Tehran left behind the Western curbs intended to stop it from military technology development in the recent years and gave its nuclear and missile program a new life.
This is nightmarish enough for the Israelis. So, they desperately put on their agenda assassination of a top nuclear and defense scientist to put the brakes on the nuclear program. Although losing a scientist as top as Fakhrizadeh is a great loss and he provided substantial services to the program and Iran’s independence as a whole, the Iranian nuclear program is a huge and complicated circle never reliant on a single person. The numerous pupils of Professor Fakhrizadeh will very efficiently fill his place.
The assassination implications and Iran response speculations
The Western media’s current propaganda line seeks to advertise the assassination operation as a big achievement and an intelligence jackpot for the CIA and Mossad. That is while a hefty chunk of the Iranian nuclear industry data are leaked to the Israeli and American intelligence agencies through Iran’s voluntary cooperation with the inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). While the IAEA according to its terms, must keep secret the information regarding the nuclear industry and the scientists involved, the Western, mainly CIA, intelligence penetration in this UN agency has repeatedly made Iran voice its protest against the failure to keep its nuclear data secret.
Meanwhile, although success of the assassination operation sets off the alarms about taking more cautious actions to block further intelligence loopholes, the efforts to assassinate the Iranian nuclear scientists have always been on agenda of Iran enemies. Apparently, there have been a fierce intelligence battle behind the scenes over the past years and the Friday crime can never discredit the value of the Iranian intelligence apparatus’s relentless job. It should never be forgotten that whereas the Western and Israeli, and reactionary Arab regimes-made and sponsored terrorist groups run rampant near Iranian borders, Iran remains an island of stability in the middle of a period of regional disturbance.
Without any doubt, the rejoicing of Netanyahu and leaders of some Arab countries as well as Americans will not last long and Iran will soon deliver a painful blow to this cowardly assassination. Now the instructors and agents of this unmanly crime have to expect the Iranian arrow of revenge coming like a lightening on them where and when they never think.
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