After several years of “no options are off the table” saber rattling against Iran, U.S./Israel appear to have decided that another major war in the Middle East is not politically or financially sustainable. Faced with Iran’s determination to continue its nuclear program U.S./Israel have reverted to a covert program of assassination, cyber-attacks and support of terrorist insurgent groups.
Shahram Amiri, an Iranian nuclear scientist at Malek Ashtar University, an institution affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, was kidnapped in June 2009 and transferred to the US. In January 2010, Massoud Ali- Mohammadi, a particle physicist, was killed by a remote-controlled bomb. Recently, Majid Jamali-Fashi confessed to having been trained by the Mossad in Israel and paid $120,000 to carry out this and five other terrorist attacks. In November 2010 Majid Sahriyari, a nuclear scientist, was killed and Fereidoun Abbasi-Davini, Iran’s current nuclear chief, and his wife were wounded in similar attacks. (These stories are here and here)
In 2010 centrifuges in Iran’s nuclear program were attacked by a malware program, the so-called Stuxnet Virus. This attack damaged the centrifuges and undoubtedly delayed Iran’s uranium enrichment program. Most experts believe that this kind of sophisticated attack could only have been accomplished with “nation state support”. In interviews with media organizations, the U.S. and Israel have tacitly acknowledged their involvement. Now that Iran’s Bushehr nuclear reactor is operating, one wonders whether the US/Israel are willing to risk a nuclear disaster by attacking this facility.
For a number of years, under a program initiated in the George W. Bush administration and continued by the Obama administration, the U.S. has supported The Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK), a Kurdish separatist group, Jundallah, a Sunni fundamentalist insurgent group in Baluchistan in Pakistan and southern Iran and The People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK), a Iranian group, now based in Iraq. These groups have been designated as terrorist groups by most western countries, including the U.S. (This story is here)
It is unclear what effect these covert efforts are having in achieving U.S. objectives in the Middle East, but one thing is clear: they are not helping relations with the Islamic Republic. When I have talked with Iranians about U.S. – Iran relations they immediately bring up the U.S overthrow of democratically elected Prime Minister, Mohammed Mosaddegh, in 1953. It is plain that Iranians have a long memory. They also have a history of not getting mad, but getting even.
Even weak countries have a limited tolerance for ongoing U.S. efforts to assassinate their leaders and to overthrow their governments. At some point the “chickens come home to roost” and they respond. One only needs to think back to conspiracy theories of involvement of Castro’s Cuba in the assassination of John F. Kennedy to see an example. (The latest version is here
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