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Killing of Nuclear Scientist Will Impair Iran's Atomic Weapons Program

(PBS) Nick Schifrin - Analysts say Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was the J. Robert Oppenheimer of Iran's nuclear program, its lead scientist. [Oppenheimer was credited with being the "father" of the U.S. atomic bomb.] In 2018, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unveiled a stolen archive of Iran's nuclear plans, and said Fakhrizadeh was responsible for continuing the program secretly. Norman Roule, former national intelligence manager for Iran at the Office of the U.S. Director of National Intelligence, told PBS on Friday that the killing of Fakhrizadeh "removes from Iran its greatest institutional memory on its weaponization program. It will be very difficult for Iran to replace this, and it will actually impair their ability to reestablish a weaponization program." "In Tehran right now, anyone they might put in his place is probably wondering at what point he or she would fall under the focus of Western institutions who might undertake a similar assassination." The new U.S. administration is "going to have to respect the security concerns of regional actors to a greater extent to avoid other incidents such as this upsetting nuclear negotiations."
2020-11-30 00:00:00
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