The zapping of Fakhrizadeh

 First off, it's important to state that as of this writing, we do not know who is responsible. All signs point to Israel and a green light from the US, but we must not get ahead of ourselves. In tense situations like this, it's important to deal in facts.

Who was he? Why would he be targeted?

Fakhrizadeh was a senior Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) officer and headed Iran’s nuclear weapons project. He was a professor of physics at the Imam Hussein University in Tehran and was former head of Iran’s Physics Research Center (PHRC). He was the only Iranian scientist named in the IAEA’s 2015 “final assessment” of open questions about Iran’s nuclear program. It said he oversaw activities “in support of a possible military dimension to (Iran’s) nuclear program.”

In other words, he was definitely on board with Iran's foreign policy and its general outlook on the world, and he was also an expert in atomic-level matters. He was a very valuable asset for the regime. 

 

Fakhrizadeh has been a target of interest for Israeli intelligence agencies for the last 15 years.

In 2018, at the unveiling of Iran’s secret nuclear archive acquired by the Mossad, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mentioned Fakhrizadeh and said: “remember that name, Fakhrizadeh.”

The files retrieved by the Mossad focused on Iran’s weapons program known as “Project Amad,” which was led by Fakhrizadeh. When Iran entered the 2015 nuclear deal, it denied that such a program existed.

In 2003, Iran was forced to shelve Project Amad, but not its nuclear ambitions. It split its program into an overt program and a covert one that continued the nuclear work under the title of scientific knowhow development, Netanyahu said at the time.

It continued this work in a series of organizations, which in 2018 were led by SPND, an organization inside Iran’s Defense Ministry led by the same person who led Project Amad – Dr. Fakhrizadeh, Netanyahu said.

Now, consider the timing of some recent events. 

In January of this year, the US took out Qasem Soleimani in a drone strike. Soleimani was, like Fakhrizadeh, an officer in the IRGC - in fact, a major general - and, since 1998, had been commander of its Quds Force. He was the prime architect of Iran's misdeeds in the Middle East.

Then came the September peace agreements between Israel and the UAE and Bahrain. These had the effect of confirming that Palestinian animosity toward Israel was no longer the centerpiece of the region's dynamics. An Israeli-Sunni Arab bloc was shaping up to form a counter-force to Iran's designs. 

Then came last weekend's clandestine meeting between Netanyahu, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. 

These events don't look unrelated. Just sayin'.

Now, there had been speculation that the incoming Biden administration would go to work trying to revive the JCPOA. That looks less likely now. 

The JCPOA was a bad "agreement" from the get-go. John Kerry and Wendy Sherman allowed themselves to be humiliated and yelled at by Iranian foreign minister Zarif at an interminable string of meetings as it was cobbled together. Much hay was made over a very narrow presumption of achievement: that Iran would not try to build a nuclear arsenal for at least ten years. It did nothing to change the Iranian regime's fundamental stance toward the West - and I'm including Israel in that formulation. Shortily after the deal was inked, on the day of Obama's State of the Union address that year, Iran stopped two US Navy patrol boats, took their crews captive and broadcast to the world photographs of the crew members on their knees with their hands behind their heads. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini, as well as top IRGC officers, continue their very public characterizations of the US as Iran's enemy. Iran continued to foment trouble in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and elsewhere. 

So whoever executed Fakhrizadeh seems to have done the world a favor. He was the point man for Iran's determination to become a nuclear power, something that must not happen.