Who Is Killing Iran’s Nuclear Scientists?
This week the 4th Iranian nuclear scientist in two years was murdered.
An article in The Atlantic condemns the killings as counterproductive to American interests, and urges the US “demonstrate its commitment to diplomacy as the only means of resolving Iran’s nuclear impasse” rather than “covert operations.” The authors don’t say whose covert operations they oppose, but suggest that the US might at least have been party to an act of terrorism.
Iran says the US and Israel did it.
An article in the UK Guardian cites an expert who says it must have been Israel:
“If you look at the choice of target it really could only be Israel,” says Robert Baer, a former CIA agent in the Middle East, currently working on a book on assassination called The Perfect Kill. “If it was an internal group, like the MeK ([Mujahedin-e-Khalq] it would be security official or policeman who had been torturing their guys. If you look at the motivation, it must be Israel.”
However, Baer adds that it is quite likely that Israel is acting in tandem with an Iranian dissident organisation. “To do this in the middle of the day, with a limpet charge and then getaway, you need a lot of people on the ground,” he says. ” You need an extensive network of the kind only someone like MeK can provide.”
Baer continues:
Baer argues that the impact on the nuclear programme itself is likely to be so minimal, it is unlikely to be the aim of the murder campaign.
“It’s a provocation,” he says. “My theory is that Israel couldn’t get the White House to agree to bombing. It is not satisfied with sanctions, so the Israelis are trying to provoke the Iranians into launching a missile and starting a war.”
People don’t like what Obama is doing. I don’t like what Obama is doing. But it must be the case that if Bush/Cheney/McCain/Republicans were in the White House now, we’d be already be at war with Iran.
