US engaged in intentional provocations against Iran to provoke war: Analyst

The United States is engaged in intentional provocations against Iran to draw it into a military conflict but the Islamic Republic has successfully frustrated Washington’s designs, according to an American author and foreign affairs analyst.

Iran has said it will not let those behind the assassination of the country’s legendary anti-terror commander General Qassem Soleimani evade punishment.

“We will not allow the martyr’s blood to go to waste and those who did it escape punishment," Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh told a virtual news conference in Tehran Monday.

Iran won’t let General Soleimani’s assassins go unpunished: Foreign Ministry

Iran says it will not let those behind the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani evade punishment.

The Islamic Republic has ceaselessly pursued this matter and will keep doing so through the international channels, he said.

“This is not something that the Iranian government and the establishment could let go by. The US administration is accountable in this regard,” the diplomat added.

Khatibzadeh said the United States committed a monumental strategic mistake by perpetrating the terrorist act.

Last month, Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was assassinated in a small city east of the capital Tehran in an ambush attack on his vehicle involving an explosion and machine gun.

Fakhrizadeh’s death came two years after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, during an erroneous presentation about Iran's nuclear activities, warned the world to “remember that name.”

Iran security chief: US' increased military activities in region out of fear, worsen insecurity

Iran

“Well of course this is not a new tactic. The CIA in particular has engaged in targeted assassinations, really from its very beginnings, though it does seem like with Iran there is an acceleration of this tactic right now with the killing of Soleimani and of course, the nuclear scientist a few weeks ago. And that's in addition to a number of nuclear scientists, who've been killed over the years,” said Daniel Kovalik, an academic at the University of Pittsburgh.

“So I do think you will continue to see this and to me, it's very clear that it's really not about eliminating these particular people but it's about trying to provoke Iran into doing something that might in the minds of the West justify a war. And that's really the scariest part about it,” he told Press TV.

“I think Iran is in a difficult spot. I mean they can't allow these things to happen to them, to be done to them with impunity, without reacting. At the same time, they don't want to overreact because again they know that these are intentional provocations to draw them into a greater conflict which Iran, of course, does not want,” he said.

“I mean they probably would survive such a conflict but they certainly would come out greatly damaged with a lot of casualties. So Iran wants to walk a very fine line, show some sort of measured response but not do something again that would create a war, and so far Iran has done a pretty great job of that truthfully, but they have to give this great thought,” the analyst concluded.

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