By Madison Ruppert

Editor of End the Lie

Iranian security forces investigating the site where a magnetic bomb was attached to a car, killing an Iranian nuclear scientist (Photo credit: Sajad Safari/AFP/Getty Images)

The day before the assassination of a nuclear scientist in Iran, the Israeli military chief Lieutenant General Benny Gantz hinted at foul play to a closed parliamentary committee.

In his testimony to the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Gantz stated that “2012 is expected to be a critical year for Iran.”

However, his truly shocking statement which fairly clearly indicates foreign involvement in the murder came when he spoke of “the confluence of efforts to advance the nuclear program, internal leadership changes, continued international pressure and things that happen to it unnaturally.”

Noting “things that happen to it unnaturally” just the day before the assassination of a nuclear expert with a magnetic bomb can hardly be disregarded as pure coincidence.

An official statement from the chief Israeli military spokesman Brigadier General Yoav Mordechai also reinforced the assertion that Israel could very well have been involved in the mysterious assassination.

On Facebook Mordechai stated, “I don’t know who settled the score with the Iranian scientist, but I certainly am not shedding a tear.”

This callous response is all-too-common from Israeli and American figures, especially among contenders for the 2012 Republican nomination.

Mordechai’s sentiment is shared by the likes of Rick Santorum and countless other chickenhawks who revel in death and suffering under the guise of “national security.”

Of course, assassinating scientists – or anyone else for that matter – is hardly an action which will help keep the United States secure or improve our image abroad.

There is also the matter of the way in which the scientist, a young man named Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, was killed.

Roshan, reportedly an expert in chemistry and one of the directors of the Natanz uranium enrichment facility, was killed when two men on a motorcycle attached a magnetic bomb to his car.

This is eerily similar to other assassinations of key nuclear scientists and researchers in Iran.

The Iranian government unfailingly points to the intelligence agencies of Israel, the United States and Britain, while these three nations deny any and all involvement.

It is hardly difficult to imagine why these nations would seek to launch a covert assault on Iran, especially as the international community is split on the supposed threat of the Iranian nuclear program.

When highly mysterious and questionable events occurred in the past and the Israeli media and analysts hinted at a possible Mossad connection, I was quick to write about it and point to the many indications that Israeli intelligence was indeed involved.

However, the statement from the military chief just a day before Roshan was killed is by far the most blatant indicator that I have seen thus far.

The official Iranian news agency IRNA stated that Roshan had “organization links” to the Iranian nuclear agency which the Washington Post claims suggests “he was an important figure.”

It is unclear why the simple statement that he had “organizational links” at all implies that he was an “important figure” but the Washington Post is infamous for making massive logical leaps and leaving it up to the reader to just take their word for it.

The Washington Post article also seems to be continuing to promulgate the nonsensical fear of a dangerous Iranian nuclear weapons program, even though the United States Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta dismissed these claims himself on national television.

The article does, however, go over some of the previous instances of Iran claiming that the Mossad, CIA and MI6 have carried out assassinations on sovereign Iranian soil.

They point to “at least three killings since early 2010″ along with the Stuxnet virus which has been directly linked to the United States and Israel by cybersecurity researchers.

In fact, one researcher says that the Stuxnet worm was indeed tested at an Israeli facility before being deployed against Iran.

That being said, the Washington Post fails to point out the most recent, highly mysterious “accidents” which have killed many Iranians, including one of the foremost ballistic missile experts.

They also do not point to the so-called Duqu virus attack which hit Iranian systems relatively recently as well.

I have previously written about this Stuxnet successor which was reportedly constructed from Stuxnet source code, which is not available to the average internet user.

Unlike Stuxnet, which was designed to directly target nuclear equipment and cause malfunctions, Duqu is designed to gather intelligence and transfer it to a remote location in order to launch a more damaging attack in the future with a Stuxnet-like program.

Due to the strong links between Stuxnet and the US-Israeli intelligence community, it is hardly illogical to posit that Duqu very well might have the same providence.

An investigative journalist for the Yediot Ahronot daily, Ronen Bergman, who is what the Washington Post calls an “expert on Israeli intelligence affairs” made quite a strong statement addressing these attacks.

Mossad has “for years” made a point at targeting supposed enemies, including “nuclear proliferators,” Bergman said.

“The outcome of such assassinations are the actual neutralization of the main scientists and the intimidation of those left behind,” Bergman added.

However, this hardly seems to be an accurate claim, given that these many “unnatural” incidents targeting the Iranian nuclear program have never managed to stifle their pursuits.

If indeed those left behind were intimidated by these assassinations, I believe we would see the Iranian nuclear program slow down or perhaps grind to a halt altogether, but that is simply not reality.

It seems to me that Iran is only emboldened and further determined to actively pursue nuclear technology after being targeted in direct violation of international law.

Iran never seems to be thrown off course by the heated rhetoric coming from the United States and Israel, even in times like these when the West is making an obvious effort to encircle Iran by arming neighboring allied states while conducting military exercises and moving through the region against Iranian wishes and demands (for more read “Iran: a quickly evolving geopolitical imbroglio” parts one, two and three).

The United States was quick to address the attacks, likely because the government is well aware that all eyes immediately shift to the United States and Israel when an Iranian nuclear scientist is assassinated.

“I want to categorically deny any United STates involvement in any kind of act of violence inside Iran,” Hillary Clinton, the United States Secretary of State, said to reporters.

However, an earlier statement from the State Department’s spokesperson differed in some very important ways, the most obvious being that United States involvement wasn’t denied outright.

Before Clinton made her statement, Victoria Nuland, State Department spokesperson, avoided directly answering a question which asked if Washington was involved in the Roshan assassination or if they instead saw him as an innocent victim.

“I’m not going to speak to who may or may not have done this,” Nuland said according to Fox News.

Nuland’s statement is couched in the characteristic ambiguity inherent in statements from government officials which do not outright deny involvement while not admitting it either.

This is the classic “plausible deniability” tactic, although Clinton’s blanket statement was a significant departure from Nuland’s approach.

While it seems like the logical thing to point fingers at the Israeli Mossad, American CIA and/or British MI6, we must remember that these intelligence agencies often leverage local proxies to carry out their dirty work.

One great example is the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK), a group officially designated by the United States Department of State as a terrorist organization which still has close ties to the American government and intelligence community.

The CIA and/or Mossad seem much more likely to contract a locals to carry out such an operation instead of attempting to slip an operative into the country undetected and conduct the operation that way.

This possibility is reinforced by the presence of CIA assets in Iran as discovered in the past and the most recent case of the alleged American spy.

Despite the clear rejection of the possibility of an Iranian nuclear weapons program by Panetta, Clinton – like so many others – continues to pretend otherwise.

Yesterday Clinton spoke out against Iran’s announcement that they are now enriching uranium at the underground Fordo bunker.

While they have only enriched uranium to 20% – far from weapons grade-levels of enrichment – Fox News laughably claims that this is “a level that can be upgraded more quickly for use in a nuclear weapon than the main stockpile.”

Sure, 20% is higher than the 3.5% they have previously attained, but it is still far short of the levels required to classify the material as weapons grade.

This is somewhat like saying that a child with a cherry bomb is closer to an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) than a child without one; sure it may be true that a cherry bomb is more explosive than plain air, but it hardly means that the child is anywhere near the technology in an ICBM.

Clinton further asserted that Iran is showing a “blatant disregard for its responsibilities” adding, “there is no plausible justification” for their move to better enrich their uranium.

This is a typically imbecilic statement from Clinton, as there is the one plausible, legitimate and quite obvious justification: better efficiency and effectiveness.

Then again Clinton and the others like her will continue to disregard all logic and common sense in order to continue to promulgate the blatantly false “Iran is a nuclear threat to the entire world” narrative.

Regardless of who was behind the attack on the Iranian nuclear scientist, it is clear that a covert campaign is being waged against the nation for nothing other than pursuing peaceful, civilian nuclear technology.

Iran is doing exactly what every Western nation is doing, yet for some reason they are regarded as an existential threat to Israel and the West as a whole.

Iran has no vested interest in striking the West, in fact it would only do them a disservice and likely mean the utter destruction of their nation.

Say what you will about the Iranian government, but I do not think that they are insane enough to think that they would last more than a couple days against the firepower of the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, and Europe.

Due to the fact that the sanctions – at least thus far – seem to be affecting the Iranian government very little, if at all, I believe that we can expect to see even more “unnatural” events in the near future, be it assassinations, “accidental” explosions, or more digital attacks.

UPDATE: Tony Cartalucci wrote a noteworthy article about the lies of Clinton regarding American involvement with violence in Iran and the United States’ connection to the MEK which can be read on his blog, the Land Destroyer. Thanks to John Frahm for posting the link on our Facebook page.

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