SPY EYES

Washington is seeking to stop Iran’s nuclear program by means of maximum covert operations including the assassination of Iranian scientists.

Speaking at the Republican presidential debate in Spartanburg, South Carolina, on Saturday former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich openly advocated increased covert terrorism against Iran.

He suggested employing “maximum covert operations to block and disrupt the Iranian program including taking out their scientists, including breaking up their systems. All of it covertly, all of it deniable.”

Gingrich advocated “actively funding every dissident group in Iran.”

US Senator Rick Santorum then explicitly advocated a preemptive strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities and said, “We would be working with Israel right now to do what they did in Syria, what they did in Iraq, which is take out that nuclear capability.”

Mitt Romney, former Massachusetts governor, also criticized the US president for not being pretty tough on Iran. “If we reelect Barack Obama, Iran will have a nuclear weapon.”

When asked whether he would choose to strike Iran militarily, Romney said “absolutely.”

The calls for assassination and terrorist acts come as Iran has lost a number of its scientists to terrorism in recent years.

On November 29, 2010, unidentified terrorists slapped adhesive bombs onto the vehicles of Iranian university professors Majid Shahriari and Fereydoun Abbasi. Professor Shahriari was killed immediately, but Dr. Abbasi and his wife sustained minor injuries and were rushed to hospital.

Professor Masoud Ali-Mohammadi, a lecturer at Tehran University, was killed by a booby-trapped motorbike in the Iranian capital, Tehran, in January 2010. The bombing took place near the professor’s home in northern Tehran.

Iran’s Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi has said that necessary measures have been adopted to ensure the safety of Iranian scientists and university professors.

On Nov. 4, 2011 Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Saeed Jalili announced that Tehran has irrefutable evidence that proves the US government was involved in anti-Iran conspiracies as well as in dispatching elements to carry out acts of sabotage and terror in Iran and other regional countries.

Jalili said that the documents show Washington has been directing and funding terrorist rings to achieve its regional objectives, adding that Tehran would be passing on the evidence to the UN.

The United States, Israel, and some of their allies accuse Tehran of pursuing military objectives in its nuclear program. And have used this pretext to push for the imposition of sanctions on the country as well as to call for an attack on the country.

Iran argues that as a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the IAEA, it has the right to develop and acquire nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

Iranian officials have promised a crushing response to any military strike against the country, warning that any such measure could result in a war that would spread beyond the Middle East.