The Road from Teheran, a Two-Way Street
Jules Crittenden

Rather than getting ready to bomb Iran … as lot of people, excluding me and Stratfor, seem to expect them to do … Israeli may be practising brain surgery instead. Specifically, a lobotomy of Iran’s nuclear program. Covert assassination operations intended to derail Iran’s nuclear program and influence Iran’s behavior:

French President Jacques Chirac started quite the uproar with his apparent faux pas … an Iranian nuclear weapon would not be much of a threat because “Tehran would be razed to the ground” if it ever tried to deploy such a device.

… Israel, however, does not care to gamble on the rationality of the Iranian regime, and does not intend to see an Iranian nuclear weapons program come to fruition.

The Israelis, therefore, have their own ways of dealing with the Iranian nuclear threat.

…. The death of a high-level Iranian nuclear scientist, Ardeshir Hassanpour, was announced by Radio Farda and Iranian state television Jan. 25 — a week after his death occurred. The Radio Farda report implicitly related the cause for Hassanpour’s death to exposure to radioactive rays, though the details were murky. Stratfor sources close to Israeli intelligence have revealed, however, that Hassanpour was in fact a Mossad target. ...

*** Update and bump. Original timestamp 2007.02.03.16:35

Report: Iranian Nuclear Scientist 'Assassinated'

WASHINGTON —  A prize-winning Iranian nuclear scientist has died in mysterious circumstances, according to Radio Farda, which is funded by the U.S. State Department and broadcasts to Iran.

An intelligence source suggested that Ardeshire Hassanpour, 44, a nuclear physicist, had been assassinated by Mossad, the Israeli security service.

Hassanpour worked at a plant in Isfahan where uranium hexafluoride gas is produced. The gas is needed to enrich uranium in another plant at Natanz which has become the focus of concerns that Iran may be developing nuclear weapons.

According to Radio Farda, Iranian reports of Hassanpour’s death emerged on Jan. 21 after a delay of six days, giving the cause as “gas poisoning”. The Iranian reports did not say how or where Hassanpour was poisoned but his death was said to have been announced at a conference on nuclear safety.

Rheva Bhalla of Stratfor, the U.S. intelligence company, claimed on Friday that Hassanpour had been targeted by Mossad and that there was “very strong intelligence” to suggest that he had been assassinated by the Israelis, who have repeatedly threatened to prevent Iran acquiring the bomb.

Hassanpour won Iran’s leading military research prize in 2004 and was awarded top prize at the Kharazmi international science festival in Iran last year. ...

Hat tip: Brennan