The assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, considered the father of Iran’s military nuclear program, on Friday, November 27, did not really surprise Washington experts on the matter. The scheduled departure of Donald Trump from the White House and the arrival of Joe Biden on January 20 must indeed be accompanied by a complete reversal of Washington’s policy, to the chagrin of the “hawks” in the maneuver since. 2016. The latter could only welcome the unilateral American withdrawal, in 2018, from the Iranian nuclear agreement concluded in 2015 and the multiplication of sanctions as part of a strategy of “Maximum pressure”.
The elected president pleads for a new start. He announced during the campaign his intention to resume dialogue with the Iranian regime. “I will offer Tehran a credible path to diplomacy. If Iran returns to strict compliance with the nuclear deal [négocié en 2015], the United States will join the agreement as a starting point for negotiations ” news, he assured in a column published in September by the CNN channel.
The opportunity for a military strike
The results of the “maximum pressure” remained well below expectations. If the official objective was to force Tehran to negotiate a new agreement, much more binding, according to American parameters, it has failed. If it aimed, as some of its critics believe, to destabilize the Iranian regime, it has not produced the desired result either, despite the devastation caused on the Iranian economy.
Especially since Tehran in turn freed itself from the constraints imposed in 2015. According to a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) made public on November 11, the state now has a quantity of low enriched uranium which exceeds twelve times the limit authorized then, and “Advanced centrifuges” proscribed by the agreement entered into office on the Natanz site.
The New York Times said on November 17 that the IAEA report would have prompted Donald Trump to probe Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Chief of Staff Mark Milley about the advisability of a military strike against this site. The President of the United States would have been dissuaded from embarking on such an enterprise, but this potential option underlines the desire to prevent as much as possible a possible return to the 2015 agreement. The White House has also refrained from to deny the information of the New York Times.
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