Besides that, while Israel's clandestine anti-Iranian shipping attacks may still be unconfirmed, the Wall Street Journal's story would be broadly in line with other reported Israeli operations targeting Iran and its proxies across the Middle East in recent years. This includes largely unacknowledged airstrikes against Iranian-backed groups in Syria and Iraq, as well as explosions and fires at various sites in Iran, including at a key facility supporting the country's controversial nuclear program. Israel is also widely believed to have been responsible for the assassination of top Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in a brazen attack last year on the car he was riding in, which may have involved the use of a gun mounted on a remotely-operated turret concealed inside another vehicle.
The Wall Street Journal's report also comes as U.S. President Joe Biden and his administration are seeking rapprochement with Iran and are looking to negotiate America's return to a controversial multi-national deal with Tehran over its nuclear program. Then-President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from this agreement in 2018. Iranian authorities have steadily violated more and more of the terms of the deal themselves since then in order to put pressure on the remaining parties, especially U.S. allies France, Germany, and the United Kingdom.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his administration, as well as a number of U.S. legislators, are opposed to this diplomatic engagement with Iranian officials, as well as any discussion of relaxing American sanctions on the regime in Iran. The Biden administration has made clear that it will not offer sanctions relief to get Iran back into compliance with the deal or as a precondition to negotiations about America's return to the agreement.
The public disclosure of this reported Israeli campaign against Iran's oil tankers and other commercial ships could put a certain new pressure on Israel, which will now be faced with the likelihood of new, potentially more overt responses from Iran and its regional proxies. These could certainly translate into more obvious retaliatory attacks, which could beget further tit-for-tat Israeli reactions.
At the same time, this report, if true, would certainly underscore Israel's willingness to take matters into its own hands to stymie Iran from carrying out various levels of malign activity, or simply cut it off from critical funding streams, if it feels that to be necessary to protect its national security.
Contact the author: joe@thedrive.com
from Hacker News https://ift.tt/2OM0Ljr
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