How smart is it of the Mossad to keep on killing Iranian nuclear scientists? I’ve been asking myself this question for over a year now, despite Israel’s tantalizing silence on the subject (almost always a sign that the country is, yes, absolutely responsible, and furthermore, delighted with the lethal results). In the past two years, five such scientists have been targeted, four of them successfully killed.

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The latest to die prematurely: Mustafa Ahmadi Roshan, 32, a chemist at Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment site and, according to the Sunday Times of London, which has an astonishingly comprehensive story on the assassination, not exactly the shining light of modern nuclear science. He was, however, “trusted by an increasingly paranoid regime,” the newspaper reveals, “because he came from a traditional religious family and had remained loyal while many of his fellow students had objected to the restraints of the Islamic regime.”

Roshan’s onetime mentor at the nuclear program was the brilliant Masud Ali Mohammadi, an expert in quantum physics. Mohammadi was, interestingly, killed two years ago, almost to the day, and in much the same manner as Roshan. In both instances—in fact, in all five assassination attempts of Iranian scientists—the m.o. was similar. A motorcycle and, more often than not, a bomb. In Mohammadi’s case, it was a bomb on a parked motorcycle that blew him to bits as he walked from his house to his car. In Roshan’s, motorcyclists sped up the scientist’s car, attaching a magnetic bomb to the vehicle before racing away.

Indeed, the British newspaper is brimming with details that only those close to the assassins could reveal. The motorcyclists wore surgical masks, much like so many Iranians who use them as protection against pollution. They knew exactly which street Roshan always passed on his way to work in his chauffeured silver Peugeot because their safe house was close to that street (Talk about not taking basic precautions!). Before attaching the bomb, one of the cyclist-assassins “made a quick check” to assure himself that Roshan was really the passenger.

And most revelatory of all: An Israeli spotter confirmed to the cyclists that the scientist’s bodyguard was at the wheel of the Peugeot—“a crucial detail because the bodyguard would be slower to respond if he was driving.” But leading all these enticing details was the deafening sound of chest-pounding on the part of someone feeling especially victorious: “a result of hard work,” “a well trained team,” “many months of intelligence gathering” …

In other words, short of providing a neon byline to the London Times article, the Mossad has done everything possible to out itself.

Here’s another question: Why?

Why, having successfully murdered on multiple occasions in an alien and hostile nation, point the finger so pompously at yourself?

My suspicion here is that the United States, which has been exceptionally vehement, angry, and impassioned in its protestations of innocence in the affair, basically insisted on Israel’s avowal of complicity. From Leon Panetta: “We were not involved in any way,” he said, while adding he had “some idea” of who was. From Hillary Clinton: “I want to categorically deny any United States involvement in any kind of act of violence inside Iran.” From Obama, a hasty phone call to Netanyahu urging, in the words of the Times story, “restraint.” (And a fat lot of good that will do.)

But the much larger question is the first. What does a nation accomplish when it murders the nuclear scientists of another nation? Does it bring to a permanent halt any nuclear program of that hostile nation? Does it delay nuclear progress for a substantial period, allowing perhaps for a more benign change in regimes in the interim? Does the prospect of an early death at the hands of the Mossad terrify budding young Iranian scientists into choosing nonnuclear venues for their skills? Will, in other words, the newest crop of graduates from the Sharif Technical University (Roshan’s alma mater) forsake quantum physics or chemistry for, say, a career in the veterinary sciences? Will it induce the hundreds of scientists at Natanz to whip off their lab coats and defect to Tel Aviv?

My bet is just the opposite. Blow up scientists working for foreign governments, and their colleagues will redouble their efforts to create weapons of destruction. And those weapons will not remain on the shelf in Natanz. They will be targeted at the home country of the Mossad. Or its allies. Or even—it could hardly be a surprise—scientists on the other side.

Photo Credit: Hamed Saber