JUAN COLE: Was the assassination of a nuclear scientist a bid to kill a Biden return to Iran nuclear Deal?

By Dilip -

Likely, the operation, whether by Israel or Saudi Arabia or both, was intended to spike tensions in US-Iranian relations so as to make it more difficult for Joe Biden to start back up the 2015 nuclear deal or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Israel does not acknowledge its covert operations, but it seems the most likely culprit….

The Iranian newspaper Ettela’at reports that on Friday, what it called “armed terrorist elements” mounted an assault on the automobile carrying Dr. Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who was badly wounded in the midst of the clash between his security team and the assailants and was transported to hospital, where he died of his injuries. Fakhrizadeh, an eminent nuclear scientist, was the head of the Research and Innovation Organization within the Iranian Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics. 

Iran’s chief justice, Ayatollah Sayyed Ibrahim Ra’isi, characterized the attack as by “foreigners and international Zionism,” with, he said, “the sinister objective of forestalling the scientific progress of the country.” The Iranian government believes that Israel’s Mossad carried out the assassination. The speaker of the Iranian parliament, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, also blamed Israel, but included among the culprits “global arrogance,” the regime’s term for American imperialism in the Middle East....

https://www.juancole.com/2020/11/nuclear-assassinates-scientist.html

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