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Analysts: Iran Likely to Delay Response to Assassination of Top Nuclear
Scientist

Jamie Dettmer

   Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has vowed to avenge the assassination
   of nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh -- a killing he and other
   Iranian leaders blame on Israel. But some diplomats and analysts say
   they don't expect Iran to retaliate quickly for the meticulously
   planned shooting Friday of the 59-year-old scientist, the second senior
   Iranian military figure to be assassinated this year.

   Iran will bide its time following the death of Fakhrizadeh, who was
   widely seen as the father of Iran's covert nuclear program, they
   suspect, fearing otherwise they might provoke a fierce military
   response from outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump.'¯

   Iranian leaders will also likely be considering whether retaliation
   will complicate President-elect Joe Biden's plan to restart a
   diplomatic engagement with Iran.'¯

   "It would be a huge miscalculation heading into a Biden
   administration," says Jonathan Schanzer of the Foundation for Defense
   of Democracies, a Washington-based research group. "If Iran were to
   carry out some kind of attack, or to engage in violent activities that
   were clearly attributed to the regime, it would, I think, represent a
   huge unforced error." That is if Tehran's "primary goal" is to get out
   from under the "maximum pressure" campaign being pursued against it by
   the Trump administration, Israel and U.S. allies in the Gulf, he adds.

   Biden has said he wants to revive the 2015 international deal, the
   Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, negotiated by his former boss,
   President Barack Obama, that saw the Iranians curtail their nuclear
   program in return for sanctions relief.

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