https://www.jns.org/opinion/fakhrizadehs-welcome-death-enrages-american-doves/
Tehran’s hysterical response to the assassination on Friday afternoon of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh is understandable. Fakhrizadeh was not only the latest Iranian scientist to be eliminated; he was the head of the Islamic Republic’s nuclear-weapons program that the mullah-led regime continues to deny. Furthermore, the inability of the regime to prevent the infiltration of foreign operatives and protect the lives of prominent figures such as Fakhrizadeh is a sign of weakness and thus a source of humiliation.
In addition, the targeted killing that everyone assumes was carried out by Israel—with the tacit approval of or hands-on help from the United States—came two days after U.S. Special Envoy for Iran Elliott Abrams announced Trump administration plans to tighten sanctions on Iran.
“We will have next week, and the week after, and the week after—all through December and January, there will be sanctions that deal with arms, that deal with weapons of mass destruction, that deal with human rights,” Abrams said at a virtual Beirut Institute event. “So, this will continue on for another couple of months, right until the end.”
In other words, up to Jan. 20 when Joe Biden is slated to assume the Oval Office, U.S. President Donald Trump doesn’t intend to succumb to lame-duck laziness and let Iran conduct business as usual.
Caught in a vise grip of economic pressure on one side and strategic surgical strikes on the other, while contending internally with a highly disgruntled populace, Iranian officials are in a panic. This explains the rise in pitch of their characteristically violent rhetoric against Israel, the “small Satan,” and America, the “great Satan.”
Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) commander Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami, for example, directed one of his customary threats at both, without naming them specifically.