{"id":11279,"date":"2020-11-28T09:40:26","date_gmt":"2020-11-28T06:10:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/?p=11279"},"modified":"2021-04-19T12:16:37","modified_gmt":"2021-04-19T07:46:37","slug":"fakhrizadeh-terror-israel-mek-sabotage-diplomacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/posts\/11279","title":{"rendered":"Fakhrizadeh Terror – Israel – MEK – sabotage diplomacy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mohsen Fakhrizadeh<\/strong>, a key Iranian nuclear official, has been assassinated in Tehran. While it\u2019s unclear as of this writing who is responsible, Israel has assassinated numerous Iranian nuclear scientists in the past, but had, until now, been unable to get to the highly protected Fakhrizadeh.<\/p>\n

Some Iranian reports claim it was a suicide attack, which would reduce the likelihood of Israeli operatives carrying out the attack, but the bullet holes in Fakhrizadeh\u2019s car cast doubt on that.<\/p>\n

Israel has in the past, however, used operatives from the the MEK \u2014 a cult-like Iranian exile group recently removed from the State Department\u2019s list of terrorist organizations \u2014 to conduct attacks in Iran. The MEK was the first group to introduce suicide assassinations to Iran.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

But Israel is a prime suspect for several reasons: It has the expertise and capacity, has done it before, and has a motive.<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s highly unlikely that Israel would have carried out the assassination without a green light from the Trump administration, a more direct U.S. role cannot be entirely discounted. The Trump administration has reportedly run several joint sabotage operations with Israel against Iran\u2019s nuclear facilities in the past year and relied in part on Israeli intelligence in carrying out the assassination of Gen. Qasem Soleimani outside the Baghdad airport last January. Earlier this month, Trump himself reportedly raised the possibility of attacking Iran with his top national-security advisers, while it was just last week that the administration\u2019s most prominent Iran hawk, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, well as leaders of Iran\u2019s adversaries in the Persian Gulf, notably Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.<\/p>\n

In any event, conducting attacks in Iran has few downsides for Israel right now. Iran could lash out and spark a broader conflict that sucks in the United States, bringing about a U.S.-Iran confrontation that Netanyahu has long sought.<\/p>\n

Or, if Iran sits tight to wait to deal with President-elect Joe Biden, the Trump administration is highly unlikely to impose any costs on other Israeli provocations.<\/p>\n

Either way, the assassination (and other likely future attacks) will likely harden Iran\u2019s position and complicate \u2014 if not ultimately cripple \u2014 the Biden team\u2019s attempts to revive diplomacy. That serves Netanyahu\u2019s interest as well.
\nndeed, Tehran\u2019s openness to post-JCPOA negotiations on missiles and other matters will likely diminish if Israel engages in renewed assassinations in Iran. In fact, the Obama administration condemned Israel\u2019s earlier assassinations precisely because it knew the murders wouldn\u2019t so much set back Iran\u2019s nuclear program, as it would any efforts to negotiate a deal to curb it.<\/p>\n

Assuming Israel\u2019s responsibility and the Trump administration\u2019s acquiescence, if not complicity, in additional Israeli provocations, we now find ourselves in a similar, but perhaps more perilous situation for the next two months \u2014 especially if Biden and his foreign policy team fail to strongly communicate that Israel will incur costs if it continues to carry out attacks inside Iran during the current interregnum.<\/p>\n

As such, we should be prepared for a very bumpy ride pending Biden\u2019s inauguration. And if it turns out that Israel was behind the assassination, there should be no illusions about Netanyahu\u2019s desire to drag the United States into another endless war in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also important that the American public take note of the broader pattern. From around 2002 to 2012, Israel pressed the United States to address Iran\u2019s nuclear program. During that period, Washington obligingly imposed ever-tougher sanctions against Tehran and repeatedly threatened military action. But those efforts failed as Iran systematically built up its nuclear capabilities.<\/p>\n

Then, from 2012 to 2015, the United States tried real diplomacy \u2014 along with the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, and China \u2014 culminating in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), widely hailed as the most far- reaching non-proliferation agreement ever negotiated, and by which Iran agreed to sharply curb its nuclear program. Despite those constraints, Israel declared its opposition and successfully pressed the Trump administration to end U.S. participation in 2018 and impose new sanctions as part of its \u201cmaximum pressure\u201d campaign against Iran.<\/p>\n

Predictably, a series of escalations since then has brought the United States and Iran minutes away from war, twice.<\/p>\n

But still, the war that many in Israel and in the United States have sought has yet to fully materialize. And now that Biden has defeated Trump, those who want war, particularly in Israel, likely see their window of opportunity closing. Meanwhile, Israel is coordinating with Trump, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates for a flood of new sanctions designed to, again, at a minimum to sabotage Biden\u2019s chances of restarting diplomacy with Iran.<\/p>\n

If Israel was behind the assassination of Fakhrizadeh \u2014 which seems highly likely though not yet proven \u2014 it demonstrates the degree to which Netanyahu feels emboldened to undermine Democratic U.S. presidents with impunity and drag the United States into war.<\/p>\n

U.S. strategic partnerships should serve to make the United States more, not less, secure. But that is where we are today with many American partnerships around the world. This will not change unless and until Washington decides to end its drive for military hegemony in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

Responsiblestatecraft<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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