The assassination of Iranian scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was almost certainly effected by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but even more certain is that the go-ahead came from America's most vindictive mob boss, Trump.
The hit "threatens to cripple President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s effort to revive the Iran nuclear deal before he can even begin his diplomacy with Tehran," writes the Times' senior national security correspondent, David Sanger. "And that may well have been a main goal of the operation."
Probably the main goal. Just as Trump has successfully derailed — at least for now — much of President Obama's agendas out of spite, he'll attempt the same to incoming President Biden.
"The reason for assassinating Fakhrizadeh wasn’t to impede Iran’s war potential," says Mark Fitzpatrick, a former State Department nonproliferation expert. "It was to impede diplomacy," he added, which Biden hopes to emphasize, and which Trump neither understands nor prefers.
Only this outgoing president, seething in rage at his reelection loss and intent on maliciously haunting his Democratic successor, would take such a belligerent step — potentially igniting an international conflict that would bog down the next incumbent just weeks before the transfer of power.
Nevertheless, even Iran's reputedly fanatical, warlike leaders are likely to maintain cooler heads than America's "presidential" mob boss. Or so we must hope. Then, in 51 days, we and the world will be rid of this inhuman pestilence.