The killing of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was supposed to deal a major blow to the ayatollah's nuclear program, or at least slow it down. Fakhrizadeh was part of the program almost from the very beginning, and eventually became its leader. He was the kind of person who can't be replaced – like Qasem Soleimani in the Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force, the scientist was a unique figure who had both knowledge and power, professionalism and passion.
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This is part of the reason why Israel decided to assassinate him, if we are to believe claims from the Iranians and foreign news reports. The mission required exceptional operational creativity, as Fakhrizadeh – who over the years had lost plenty of friends and employees at the nuclear program who were targeted by unknown entities – knew he was being targeted and took care to ensure his safety.
It was clear that an assassination using the familiar tactic of a gunman or a bomb attached to his car wouldn't work. A complicated operation was needed that included unusual intelligence, technological and operational capabilities. The solution appeared to have been lifted from a James Bond film: a robot car that had been specially programmed for the mission was set up at the side of the road and remotely activated when Fakhrizadeh 's vehicle passed it.
A year later, we should ask whether the successful targeted killing actually achieved its strategic goals. Fakhrizadeh was taken out of the game and no one approaching his level has been found to succeed him, but the Iranians have made significant progress in their nuclear program. Anyone who expected that his death would cause them to think again or be demoralized, or at least hold up their nuclear development, was quickly proved wrong.
It appears as if the opposite happened. Iran became even more motivated after he was killed. Another incident contributed to that: an explosion at the uranium enrichment facility at Natanz. Whoever attacked it – by blowing up its electrical system, causing a number of the centrifuges used to enrich uranium to crash – believed it would take the Iranians months, if not longer, to rebuild the damaged system and resume the same level of enrichment. But the Iranians worked assiduously, removed the non-functioning centrifuges, and replaced them with new, more advanced ones, and went back to enriching uranium, this time, at a higher level than ever before.
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As a result, Iran has approached nuclear threshold status. It's possible that it would have done the same thing if Fakhrizadeh hadn't been killed and the Natanz facility hadn't been sabotaged, but these incidents certainly caused Iran to adopt a more contrarian policy than in the past. The Americans interpret these actions, which are attributed to Israel, in the same light, with officials in Washington arguing recently that they brought Iran closer to developing nuclear weapons rather than the opposite.
Time for conclusions
It's not certain that Israel has arrived at the same conclusions about these events. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said on Wednesday that instead of fighting Iran and its satellites throughout the world, Iran should be fought on its own soil. This is a threat that was intended mainly to deter, but is always being tested if we add the variety of operations supposedly carried out by the Mossad, the cyberattacks, and the repeated strikes on Iranian weapons shipments in the region.
Even if these actions continue, it's not certain they will keep Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. Currently, it looks as if the only way of doing that – other than a military strike – is through diplomacy: a new nuclear deal that will replace the one from which the US withdrew in 2018 due in a large part to pressure from Israel.
After playing for time, Iran announced it would be returning to the nuclear talks next week. Anyone who knows the Iranians knows that we can expect a lengthy bazaar before a new deal is reached, if a new deal is reached. Israel should do everything possible to influence the deal's content, and especially ensure that it keeps Iran away from nuclear weapons capabilities for as long as possible. Until then, and even afterward, Israel should keep hold of its big stick and use it to warn anyone playing around with the Doomsday weapon that his own Doomsday could come sooner than he expects.
