The death of Fachrisadeh makes a new nuclear deal more likely

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After the assassination of the Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fachrisadeh, a catchy interpretation prevailed in many analyzes: Whoever turned off the head of the Iranian nuclear bomb program (Israel is the most likely candidate, possibly also the USA), pursued one goal above all: the efforts of the soon-to-be US President Joe Biden, to defuse the crisis with Iran and to return to the nuclear program, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cannot stand any more than Donald Trump.

That sounds like a plausible explanation at first, after all, the time shortly before Biden took office is quite suspect.

But on closer inspection, doubts about this reading grow.

On the one hand, this has to do with the nature of intelligence.

Sure, Mossad and CIA are some of the services with the best information about Iran and the region.

However, that does not mean that they can switch off high-level goals at any time when politicians think the time is appropriate.

In fact, it often takes many years, sometimes even decades, before the opportunity arises to strike in the shadow war in the Middle East because an intelligence service finally receives reliable information about where a target is or where they are planning to travel.

A targeted killing also requires enough preparation time to get a team into position and prepare a situation in which collateral damage can largely be avoided.

A combination of factors that rarely occurs.

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In the past, this was the case with the military leader of Hezbollah, Imad Mugnija.

The terrorist chief was on the hunting list of both Americans and Israelis for decades, until the CIA and Mossad managed to get operational information about his whereabouts in 2008 and to kill him.

The same was true of Kassim Suleimani, Iran's chief oversight terrorist, who was killed by a drone strike earlier this year by the Trump administration.

Fachrisadeh has also been targeted by the Israelis for many years.

According to many experts, they are responsible for the deaths of four Iranian nuclear scientists who allegedly worked on the bomb and who died in attacks between 2010 and 2012.

If the Israelis had had the opportunity at that time to also eliminate their top boss, Fachrisadeh, then they would certainly have done it.

Because of these practical reasons, it is therefore more likely that the point in time was primarily determined by the fact that there was a unique opportunity to eliminate specialist risk, because relevant knowledge was available.

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When a secret service like the Israeli or American agency receives information about the whereabouts of a so-called “high-value target”, then meticulous analyzes are made of the possible consequences of an attack.

Politicians only give the green light when they have been carefully considered.

It is quite possible that Biden's possible return to the old nuclear deal also played a role in this consideration.

Did Israel have to act now?

If it was the Israelis, for which there are some arguments, another consideration might have been more important: Once Biden is in office, Israel has significantly less political leeway for such actions than under Trump.

A blow against the father of the Iranian nuclear program would damage the relationship between Biden and Israel much more permanently when Biden is president and even started negotiations with Iran again than at a moment when the action is not a direct affront to Biden, because he's not in office yet.

So the Israelis may have felt that the political window for such an action was closing and that if they had reliable information they would be better off because such an opportunity would be denied to them under another US administration or would result in excessive political costs .

Former high-ranking members of Israel's security apparatus offer another explanation for the point in time: Jerusalem had factored in Tehran's fear that US President Donald Trump is planning a drastic action against Iran shortly before leaving office.

Therefore, it is expected, the mullahs would probably hold back from retaliatory attacks against Israel in order not to trigger a reaction from Trump.

It's not about making the weather good

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The thesis that this is primarily a question of political sabotage is also questionable in terms of content.

Accordingly, the elimination of Fachrisadeh is intended to prevent the détente intended by Biden and to reduce Tehran's willingness to engage in new negotiations.

Now it is certainly correct that the mullahs do not want to lose face and that their room for compromise is therefore limited immediately after such an attack.

But it is also a naive understanding of Middle Eastern diplomacy to believe that the most important thing is to make the weather good.

In fact, the exact opposite can be learned from the history of the nuclear negotiations.

The negotiations, which have been led primarily by the Europeans since 2006, were shaped by the attempt to create a good atmosphere for discussion and to allow Iran to save face in public.

Despite years of negotiations and new rounds of talks, this did not lead to any real concessions from the Iranians.

That only changed when the West set up a harsh sanctions regime against Tehran and persuaded other states to join in.

So the Europeans first made the mistake of being too nice.

For his part, Trump made the mistake of merely showing severity without offering a real diplomatic way out.

Biden now has the chance to combine both toughness and an offer to talk in order to get a better deal than the one that President Barack Obama negotiated in 2015.

Eventually, Trump raised the sanctions to a very painful level again, and Biden can now use that as a lever.

Iran has no viable alternative

How does Fachrisadeh's death fit into this picture?

It makes a deal more likely because it blocks Iran viable alternatives to a new deal.

Since Trump's exit from the nuclear deal, Tehran has also given up its commitments and is slowly getting closer to nuclear weapons capability, which increases the temptation to dare to make the final sprint to the bomb.

The mullahs are faced with the alternative of concluding an agreement with the West that eliminates the justified criticism of Obama's deal - or of completing the nuclear bomb program and thus making themselves virtually unassailable.

The latter is likely to be difficult without Fachrisadeh, who was something like Robert Oppenheimer of the Iranian nuclear program.

And now that the assassins have demonstrated once again how good the sources of Western services are, even from the core of the regime, this path seems even more risky, because a sprint to the bomb is unlikely to go undetected.

The attack may therefore dampen Iran's willingness to talk to Biden for some time.

If, on the other hand, one looks at the cost-benefit calculations that the regime in Tehran also has to make, then the loss of Fachrisadeh is another element that speaks against the atomic bomb and in favor of accommodation with Biden.

Its leaf was actually strengthened with the attack and not weakened, as many believe.

Now the most important thing is that Biden uses this additional leverage and the enormous pressure that Trump has built on Tehran for successful diplomacy.

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