By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
Asia Times
"The assassination of Dr Massoud Ali Mohammadi, a Tehran University nuclear physicist, on Tuesday, blamed by the Iranian government on the United States and Israel and their fifth-column allies inside Iran, is the latest sign of an ominous, growing shadow war with Iran over its nuclear standoff with the West.........
Tuesday's assassination follows the disappearance of another Iranian nuclear scientist, Shahram Amiri, who went missing while on a pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, in late May 2009. Tehran has adamantly claimed that he was abducted by the US Central Intelligence Agency. Unconfirmed reports in December said Amiri had been transferred into the US government's custody by Saudi authorities.
The two cases could be viewed as an attack on Iran's human nuclear assets, as the next best substitute for outright military invasion. There is also a relentless public relations campaign in the West against Iran's nuclear program.....
There is a grave danger in this shadow war, in that should it get much worse, Iran could decide to strike back where it can, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet, with the US and Iran practically co-dependent in regional security, imperiled by al-Qaeda and the Taliban, it is not in the interests of either country to allow a worsening of their relations at this delicate juncture.....
The notion that Iran will back down in the face of such threats is an inheritance of the previous US administration of George W Bush; it did not work then, nor is it likely to work now.
The Barack Obama administration would be best-served to salvage its self-wrecking ship of Iran diplomacy by veering back to its initial intuition of what works with Iran, that is, persuasive diplomacy. Unfortunately, as the smoke of the bomb explosion that killed Mohammadi clears in Tehran, the hazy thickness of an undeclared shadow war with Iran grows."
Asia Times
"The assassination of Dr Massoud Ali Mohammadi, a Tehran University nuclear physicist, on Tuesday, blamed by the Iranian government on the United States and Israel and their fifth-column allies inside Iran, is the latest sign of an ominous, growing shadow war with Iran over its nuclear standoff with the West.........
Tuesday's assassination follows the disappearance of another Iranian nuclear scientist, Shahram Amiri, who went missing while on a pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, in late May 2009. Tehran has adamantly claimed that he was abducted by the US Central Intelligence Agency. Unconfirmed reports in December said Amiri had been transferred into the US government's custody by Saudi authorities.
The two cases could be viewed as an attack on Iran's human nuclear assets, as the next best substitute for outright military invasion. There is also a relentless public relations campaign in the West against Iran's nuclear program.....
There is a grave danger in this shadow war, in that should it get much worse, Iran could decide to strike back where it can, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet, with the US and Iran practically co-dependent in regional security, imperiled by al-Qaeda and the Taliban, it is not in the interests of either country to allow a worsening of their relations at this delicate juncture.....
The notion that Iran will back down in the face of such threats is an inheritance of the previous US administration of George W Bush; it did not work then, nor is it likely to work now.
The Barack Obama administration would be best-served to salvage its self-wrecking ship of Iran diplomacy by veering back to its initial intuition of what works with Iran, that is, persuasive diplomacy. Unfortunately, as the smoke of the bomb explosion that killed Mohammadi clears in Tehran, the hazy thickness of an undeclared shadow war with Iran grows."
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