Revelations over recent days, whether partially or totally accurate, underscore the need to stop the merger of Israel-U.S. military and intelligence capacities, proposed in the pending NDAA. Two reports were published on July 2, one in The New York Times followed by one in The Washington Post, both claiming that U.S. officials aimed to head off Israel assassinations plots against the two Iranian figures who emerged during the war as top negotiators for the Islamic Republic with the U.S.: parliamentary speaker Mohamed Bagher Ghalibaf and foreign minister Abbas Araghchi.
“Fearful that an Israeli assassination effort would doom the negotiations, the United States, according to some of the officials, went so far as to ask other countries in the region to warn Iran about the possibility Israel could target the two officials,” the Times report says. “U.S. officials acknowledged that during the intense phase of the war, Mr. Araghchi and Mr. Ghalibaf, as senior government officials, could have been legitimate targets for Israel, which was intent on toppling Iran’s hard-line government. But after the negotiations started in earnest in April, American officials believed that any attempt to kill the Iranian leaders would end the talks and reignite the fighting.”
Concerns about the Israeli threat apparently peaked around the Islamabad meeting in April when Iranian security officials were concerned that Israel would use the opportunity to assassinate Mr. Ghalibaf or Mr. Araghchi to derail the talks, the officials said. Iranians sought guarantees from the United States, through Pakistani and Qatari intermediaries, that Israel would not carry out any covert operations targeting the Iranian delegation, the officials said. Indeed, both Pakistan and Iran took security measures to protect the Iranian delegation against a looming Israeli threat to shoot down their plane.
