Israel may have killed top Iranian nuclear weapons scientist to avert dangerous threat

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif tweeted: “Terrorists murdered an eminent Iranian scientist today. This cowardice—with serious indications of Israeli role—shows desperate warmongering of perpetrators.”

At least five Iranian nuclear scientists were killed between 2010 and 2012. Iran blamed Israel for all these killings.

If it turns out that Israel is behind the killing of Fakhrizadeh, the strike may reflect the Jewish state’s worry about a major shift in U.S. policy toward Iran under the administration of Joe Biden when he becomes president Jan. 20 (barring a reversal of the election outcome that President Trump is seeking).

Given the obsession by Democrats to rebuke President Trump and rejoin the Iran nuclear deal and Iran’s stated refusal to reopen the agreement for renegotiation, it is likely the U.S. will quickly rejoin the agreement and drop U.S. sanctions on Iran after Biden takes office.

Israel knows such a development would be a huge boon to Iran’s military and nuclear programs and likely also would embolden Iran to step up its meddling in regional conflicts and sponsorship of terrorism.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may have concluded that the threat from Iran’s nuclear weapons program was becoming too dangerous and Israel therefore had to take action to deny Iran the benefit of Fakhrizadeh’s expertise in constructing a nuclear weapon. Israel may also have wanted to deter other Iranians from working on this effort.

Israeli officials remember that President Barack Obama’s administration pressed their nation hard in 2014 to stop assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists and to not attack Iran’s nuclear facilities while the Obama administration was engaged in diplomacy that amounted to appeasement of Iran.

The Jewish state may have staged the killing of Fakhrizadeh now in the belief that a Biden administration will begin a new round of Iran appeasement and again press Israel not to take provocative actions against Iran’s dangerous nuclear program.

Israel reportedly recently put its military on alert because of the possibility that President Trump may order an attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities before he leaves office.

I believe Trump may have considered such an attack but will not order one, because of his commitment not to start unnecessary wars.  It is more likely that Israel put its military on alert due to actions it was planning against Iran’s nuclear program — like the Fakhrizadeh assassination — in anticipation of Iranian blowback.

Fakhrizadeh was a nuclear physicist and head of Iran’s Physics Research Center. He oversaw the Amad Plan — Iran’s secret research program to develop nuclear weapons.

The Amad Plan was started in the late 1990s or the early 2000s. It included a nuclear warhead design program, modification of a Shahab missile to carry a nuclear warhead, and aid to Iran’s nuclear program from the Pakistan-based A.Q. Khan nuclear proliferation network and from a former Russian nuclear scientist.

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