Iran may wait to react to the assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the father of its nuclear program, with any kind of military force until the end of the Trump era, former IDF intelligence chief Maj.-Gen. (res.) Amos Yadlin said on Sunday.
Speaking at a Media Central virtual press event, Yadlin, who is the Institute for National Security Studies executive director, said that while in the case of the assassination of Qasem Soleimani, the chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force “the US took responsibility” and Tehran responded by firing “dozens of missiles at a US base in Iraq,” here, “no one took responsibility,” so Iran may “postpone at least until the last days of Trump, since they do not want to give him enough time to use [their] retaliation as a trigger to a US attack” on them.
Yadlin explained that despite Iran’s accusations of Israeli involvement in killing Fakhrizadeh, the fact that Jerusalem has not taken responsibility gives the ayatollahs a way out from having to respond loudly and immediately.
Further, the former military intelligence chief said he thought that Iran’s anger at whoever undertook the assassination would be overcome by the fear that any reaction would bring on the far greater wrath of Trump.
But if the Islamic Republic responds in the last days of Trump’s presidency, or during the early days of the incoming Biden administration, the risk of incurring massive US retaliation would be much lower.
Yadlin noted that the harshest option for Iran might be to launch ballistic missiles on Israel, as it did against Saudi Arabia last year.
However, he said it might just as likely “react in accelerating the nuclear program. The overt one. They have already done it since May 2019. They can enrich more [uranium], they can enrich [it] to a higher level, they can install advanced centrifuges. This would be a strategic reaction or step.”
He also said that attacks on Israeli embassies or Israeli VIPs would dovetail with how Iran responded to the killings of its nuclear scientists during the 2010-2012 period.
Finally, he noted that any of Iran’s proxies in Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, Iraq or elsewhere could be used to retaliate by firing rockets which would be dangerous, but less inflammatory than Iran using its own ballistic missiles.
On a related note, Yadlin said he “highly recommended to” Israeli officials “to keep their mouths closed and not leak anything. They already spoke too much,” he said, referring to hints dropped by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week of potential involvement in operations against Iran.
He appeared perturbed that, “the Americans were fast to leak to The New York Times that it was done by Israel. Any more evidence which helps Iran to decide on retaliating against Israel is a mistake.”
Yadlin suggested that “the damage to the [nuclear] program to the weaponization program is huge, but cannot be measured because no one knows the scope and the depth of what the Iranians are doing covertly.”
He said that the reason he knew Fakhrizadeh’s killing would set Tehran back was because “no doubt he was the core source of authority, knowledge and organization of this program.”
Comparing him again to Soleimani, Yadlin said that even though the Iranians would replace him, there was no one with his unique skill set at his level.
As for timing, Yadlin theorized that Fakhrizadeh was killed now due to a variety of complex operational considerations and specific capabilities and limitations, since such a precise operation required extensive long-term planning.
Moreover, he said that if other parties like the US, the Saudis or Iranian dissidents were involved, then it might have taken time and particular circumstances to get all the parties to green light the targeted killing.