Who killed Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan?

The most likely explanation is usually the simplest

Another day, another Iranian nuclear scientist heads off to collect his 72 virgins. Sadly so does his driver. Mercifully, in spite of the location and the time of day, only one passer-by was injured.

This is the fifth similar attack over the last couple of years, and the fourth such fatality. Coming amid global hysteria over Iran’s nuclear activities the possible culprits are many, though most fingers are pointing at the loudest critics of all, America and Israel.

 

Damn those imperialist dogs

For me though, the case against the usual suspects seems rather weak on both means and motive.

A car-bomb, however sophisticated the charge and however cautiously deployed, is a rather crude, visible and risky way of going about it. If one chooses to describe the CIA and Mossad as covert intelligence organisations, wouldn’t they go about something like this, er, covertly? A silenced shot to the head in the dead of night perhaps? A clever poisoning maybe? A knifing during a staged mugging? The safe and silent options are many.

While the “collateral damage” of America’s drone attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan and Israel’s actions in the occupied territories hardly display a chariness towards civilian deaths, they generally come as an unavoidable consequence of dealing with unrest hands-on or bombing a terrorist facility located within civilian infrastructure. Or they are just plain cock-ups. I may very well be giving the usual suspects way too much credit here, but I find it hard to see their political paymasters signing off on a car-bombing in a civilian location with an inevitable risk of maimed and murdered women and children being splashed all over the news. Not when there are alternatives.

Now, fair enough, it might not have been the CIA or Mossad themselves, but dissident groups within Iran (of which I’m sure there are many) who may or may not be bankrolled by the usual suspects. This would give us rather more leeway on the means.

But what of the motive?

For America and Israel it is supposedly interfering with Iran’s nuclear program. But the script on Iran’s nuclear program has already been written – their pips are squeezed ever harder by sanctions until they give up, and if they don’t give up, they get invaded. So why bother with egregious assassinations of a few nuclear scientists? You can’t kill all of them after all. And if you did Iran would find more. At best this is a small bump in Iran’s road to becoming a nuclear power.

And as for the Iranian dissidents, what do they gain? Isn’t the goal of such a group to disrupt and discredit the government? Wouldn’t they have politicians and officials to target?

If your aim is to damage the establishment and encourage rebellion, why commit an action that will outrage the people and unite them, in anger and street protest, in support of the Iranian government?

Which is surely the most significant consequence of this murder.

And which brings me to perhaps a more likely culprit.

The Iranian Government.

 

Sceptical and Cynical

I’m no lover of conspiracy theories. To my mind, they always seem to credit the conspirators with a degree of foresight, talent and intelligence that they so obviously lack in real life. But I’m also a suspicious old sod and am if anything keener on alternative explanations than accepted ones

Especially when an alternative seems to have more credibility.

I mean, who gains the most from this event? And who has the least regard for the suffering of innocent Iranian civilians?

 

Goldsteinism

Big brother knew it, Stalin knew it, Kim Jong Il knew it, Hugo Chavez knows it. All self-respecting dictatorial and totalitarian regimes practice it. Have an enemy and make it a big one. Give the people someone to hate, someone to fear, someone to unite against. Being scared of the evils the enemy wants to do to you is a great distraction from the evils your government are doing to you.

For such regimes a handful of lives are always expendable to further the cause and to galvanise the people in difficult and austere times, like, oh, the imposition of increasing international sanctions.

Whatever the Iranian government’s real intentions are for their nuclear program, history tells us that the above alone would be reason enough for them to perpetrate this crime.

But perhaps there are more.

 

What Iran really wants

As previously mentioned, the script on a nuclear Iran has already been written. It will never happen. They will either stop under the weight of international protest and sanctions, the people will rise up under the weight of those sanctions, or the country will be invaded. One way or another, it will be stopped. No-one can have any real doubts about that.

And no sane person wants to start a war if it can be avoided. And China and Russia are but fair weather friends to Iran. If it comes down to an invasion, the best they’ll do for their buddy is stand on the sidelines. Short of Hugo Chavez, the Iranian government will find themselves standing alone, like a little kid surrounded by school bullies.

No sane person wants to go to war, but there have been plenty of insane ones who have. We can’t rule out the possibility that the Iranian authorities are either deluding themselves that the above isn’t true or simply don’t care about the consequences.

But I’m a realist. And on the balance of probabilities I suspect the Iranian authorities count more realists amongst their numbers than we might give them credit for.

So what’s their exit strategy?

 

Buy one, get two free

If Iran is resigned to eventually coming to the negotiating table they won’t be in any rush to get there and they’ll want the sweetest deal they can get when they do.  In the meantime, as any good totalitarian regime would, they need to look credible and keep their people in check.

This assassination takes care of the latter, for a while at least, but it carries a couple of free bonuses for the former. First of all it gives them an excuse for proceeding more slowly than otherwise billed Secondly, when the time comes to negotiate their way out of it, they’ll have an extra bargaining chip to bring to the table, redress for the heinous acts perpetrated on their innocent citizens. A sympathy card their fair weather friends will no doubt be more than happy to help them play.

And so my condolences to Mr Ahmadi-Roshan’s loved ones. If you’re looking for someone to blame, you might try Big Brother.