Multiple threats of revenge…
As Claudius said in Hamlet, “O, this is the poison of deep grief…”
Earlier today, local time, in a daytime ambush on a rural road outside Tehran, one of Iran‘s most prominent and well-guarded nuclear scientists was killed.
Iranian media is calling it a roadside ambush as he and his bodyguards traveled outside Tehran.
For two decades, the scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, was the driving force behind what American and Israeli officials describe as Iran’s secretive nuclear weapons program.
His role in Iran’s current programs – reactors and uranium enrichment – was less direct and intel analysts said the killing would likely have a limited impact ??! on Tehran’s nuclear capabilities.
Israel, with high certainty, will become the focus of this attack on the scientist.
It’s unclear, at the moment, how much the US may have known about the operation in advance, but the two nations are the closest of allies and have long shared intelligence regarding Iran, which Israel considers its most potent threat.
That said, Fakhrizadeh’s assassination – only 10 months after the US killed General Qassim Suleimani in a drone attack in Iraq – could greatly complicate Biden’s plans to reactivate the 2015 nuclear agreement between Tehran and six other nations, which curtailed Iran’s nuclear activities.
These twin assassinations may have poisoned the well, elevating the risks of lethal retaliation.
Lobster on the Prairie 