As Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the head of the Iranian nuclear programme assassinated last Friday, was given a martyr’s state funeral three days later in Tehran, Iranian media organisations competed with each other to come up with ever more fantastical versions of how he met his death. The latest account had no actual assassins on the scene, just a robotic machine-gun, operated from space by an Israeli satellite and mounted on a Nissan truck which then self-destructed. This version elicited mirth in some quarters in Israel.
It’s not that such technology does not exist in Israel, it does. It’s only that carrying out a complex operation to assassinate a key target such as Professor Brigadier General Fakhrizadeh without operatives on the ground to ensure that he was indeed eliminated, makes little operational sense. “It’s obvious that the Iranians are above all deeply embarrassed by the fact that yet again, a team of assassins was able to roam freely in the heart of Iran and strike at one of the regime’s most important figures,” said one former Israeli intelligence official. “Just imagine that a team of Iranian agents had operated like that in central Israel. All the chiefs of the security services would have resigned.”
While Israeli security is on high-alert both on the country’s borders and at its embassies and consulates around the world, the working assumption of the intelligence community is that Iran won’t rush to retaliate. For a start, they are still focused on trying to work out how whoever carried out the assassination managed to track down his whereabouts and prepare an elaborate ambush in a spot where it would take their own security forces time to respond. And then there’s the inauguration in Washington on January 20. The Iranian leadership is anxious for the incoming Biden administration to ease the ever-increasing sanctions imposed by President Trump and don’t want to jeopardise that.
A lot has been said in Washington in recent days about the timing of the assassination, in the twilight period between the administrations. And that if indeed it was Israel behind it, that this would have been an opportune moment, while the Iran-hawks are still in charge. This may have played a major part in the decision process but at the same time, it has to be said that such an operation, with or without a satellite-operated machine gun, would have taken many months of planning, long before President-elect Joe Biden won the election. And the American political calendar is not the only thing which would have been taken in to consideration.
The assassination took place after a month of intense internal security operations. Last month was the month of Aban in the Solar Hijra calendar used in Iran. Aban last year was a month of angry protests against the Iranian leadership in dozens of towns and cities across the country. This Aban, Iranian security forces were focused inwards, making sure that another month of protests didn’t take place. They were less focused on external threats. Hardly coincidental timing.
But beyond the acute embarrassment to the Iranian leadership, it has to be asked, who benefits from Fakhrizadeh’s assassination?
Israel has not taken responsibility, beyond Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cryptic video on Friday afternoon in which he boasted of his achievements over the past week, with the caveat that “this is a partial list. I can’t tell you everything.” Later that evening, an anonymous Israeli government source briefed reporters that Fakhrizadeh’s death would deal “a significant setback to Iran’s nuclear programme”. This was at best an exaggeration. The nuclear programme has long been instutionalised in the Iranian civil and military infrastructure and not even the loss of the most senior scientist and manager will make much of a difference. There is no shortage of those prepared to take his place.
If indeed it was Israel, the real importance in the assassination is in the series of signals it sends. To the Iranians, that their plans are known and their leaders are not safe. To the incoming Biden administration, and the Sunni regimes in the Gulf, that Israel is not about to relinquish its all-out offensive against Iran. And to the Israeli electorate that may well be back at the polls very soon, that Mr Netanyahu has lost none of his daring or vigour.
