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Assassination of Iranian Nuclear Scientists and the Follow On

On July 25, the Times of Israel published a story titled Strikes on Iran thwarted fission and fusion nukes, and ‘electronic pulse’ bomb. It was based on a column published by David Ignatius in the Washington Post. Besides the writeup on the title story, there was also this: 

The damage to Iran’s nuclear and missile programs was compounded by Israel’s assassination of [11 persons in] the first tier, second tier and most of the third tier of Iranian physicists and nuclear scientists. Israeli officials were cited as saying it was expected that younger Iranians would be deterred from pursuing careers in those fields as a result of the killings. 

More insight into that last sentence was given in the July 15 report by David Albright’s Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) titled Significance of the Targeted Nuclear Scientists in the 12-Day War. In Albright’s report we find the following: 

In an apparent effort to pre-empt recovery and recruitments, Israel threatened a far larger group of scientists during the war via social media, an effort that may continue, warning them explicitly that death awaits them if they work on nuclear weapons. They reached out throughout Iran offering rewards and safety to informants who provide information about secret nuclear activities. The desired message is clear: Any Iranian scientist or engineer who decides to work on nuclear weapons or on secret gas centrifuge programs will know that his or her life, and potentially their family’s lives, are at risk and that a colleague nearby could become an informant, exposing the entire secret effort, with potentially devastating consequences. 

That insight into Israel’s covert war on Iran makes one ponder. How can there be a peaceful coexistence between the two countries when the ingrained Israeli mindset is that the Islamic Republic of Iran is an existential threat and therefore anything, anything, that counters that threat is justified? And one thinks, isn’t the United States complicit with all that Israel is doing - in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and in Iran? Some will push this aside, saying that assassination and threat of assassination is in the Middle East culture. But is it in America’s?

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