Ambushed today outside Tehran, the father of Iran’s bomb Mohsen Fakhizadeh was gunned down by unknown assailants having Israel’s fingerprints all over the bullet-ridden Lexus sedan. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had no comment nor did the U.S. State Department. Speaking in 2018 about the Iranian nuclear threat, Netanyahu named Fakhrizadeh. “Remember that name,” Netanyahu said, referring to Iran’s senior nuclear scientist working on military applications of Iran’s nuclear industry. Fakhrizadeh rarely appeared in public, hidden from public view by the Iranian government knowing that he was a target for Israel’s Mossad security service, trying to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Khameni called Israel a “cancerous tumor,” admitting he’d like to see Israel eliminated.
No one in the intelligence business believes that anyone other than Israel would have undertaken such an operation because it’s happened before. Ten years ago another Iranian nuclear scientist, Majid Shahriari, was gunned down, also blamed on Israeli security services, after the U.S.-Israeli Stuxnet computer virus failed to destroy Iranian centrifuges. At that time, Iran’s 65-year-old President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threatened to “wipe Israel off the map,” hosting a Holocaust Deniers conference in Tehran, a sore point with Netanyahu and the Israeli government. President Barack ignored Ahamadinejad’s threats against Israel, working feverishly with his 76-year-old Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action [JCPOA] AKA “the Iranian Nuke Deal,” curtailing Iran’s escalating nuclear enrichment program.
When you consider that Ahmadinejad declared Iran a “nuclear power,” there was little doubt with U.S. and European Union intel officials that Iran was secretly working on nuclear bomb, despite all the denials. Heading that program after Majid Shahriari’s assassination Nov. 29, 2010, Fakhrizadeh was in charge, moving full steam ahead on refining weapons grade uranium. Obama’s July 15, 2015 Iranian Nuke Deal handed Iran $1.6 billion in cash and restored $150 billion in sanctions relief, in exchange for Iran limiting its uranium production for 10 years. Only one small problem, the Iranian Nuke Deal did not require verification in Iran’s secret military nuclear facilities, especially the one in Natanz. When Trump cancelled U.S. involvement in the JCPOA May 8, 2018, he cited the inability of the U.S. or U.N. inspectors to verify Iran’s military grade uranium and Iran’s proxy war against Saudi Arabia.
Once Iran got all the cash and sanctions relief, they went on a state-sponsored terrorism binge, hitting Saudi’s Riyadh International Airport with Iranian’s-made ballistic missiles. All the while, Iran supplied rockets to Gaza’s Hamas terrorist and Lebanon’s Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia to attack Israel’s Northern border. Knowing this Netanyahu spoke to a joint session of Congress warning the Obama White House not to sign a nuclear deal with Iran knowing what would happen. President Donald Trump, 74, worked hand-in-glove to contain Iran’s growing terrorism and nuclear ambition. With 77-year-old President-elect Joe Biden due to take over Jan. 20, 2021, Biden’s State Department, led by 58-year-old Antony Blinken, looks to reinstate U.S. involvement in the JCPOA. Today’s assassination of Fakhrizadeh invites Iranian retaliation at a time of transition for the U.S. government.
Fakhrizadeh’s death comes on the heals of Trump ordering the predator drone strike Jan. 3 near the Baghdad airport, killing 63-year-old Al-Quad’s Force leader Qassem Solemani, pushing Iran to retaliate. Today’s killing of Fakhrizadeh could push Khamenei to order retaliatory strikes on Israel, something the White House doesn’t want only seven weeks before Biden’s inauguration. When Biden takes office, he has to deal with Iran’s egregious violation of the JCPOA, enriching over 12 times the amount of uranium required under the agreement’s strict limits. Once Trump backed out the JCPOA, Iran cranked up its advanced centrifuges to exceed the JCPOA’s limits. However close Iran is to an A-bomb, it’s state-sponsored terrorism in Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf has made the JCPOA null-and-void, according to German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas.
Whatever happens when Biden takes over the White House Jan. 20, 2021, he can’t simply return to the JCPOA without Iran returning to compliance with the agreement. Stockpiling enriched uranium at unprecedented rates, Biden, and his Secretary of State Antony Blinken, can’t sit idly by without jeopardizing U.S. national security. White House officials can’t ignore when Iran continues to blow up Saudi oil refineries and other infrastructure. It’s no accident that Netanyahu met for the first time with 36-year-old Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman [MbS] to discuss strategy dealing with Iran’s proxy war against the Kingdom. Forming alliance with the Arab Gulf States, Netanyahu served notice that he won’t let Tehran continue to menace Israel, Saudi Arabia and other Mideast countries. Biden will have to pivot from his Obama days, if he wants to deal with Iran.
