Believed to be the father of the Islamic republic's military nuclear program, Molson Factories a Day was assassinated last week in a hell of gunfire and explosives.

Iran has blamed Israel and an exiled Iranian group thought government in Tehran has said that it will seek revenge for Pharisees death in due time.

Iran says it will not be provoked into retaliating.

But can the regime in Tehran strike back on an equal level?

Analysts say it's very, very unlikely.

But I think that Iran is not a capability toe answer proportionally to this act like the same happen with Qasem Soleimani killing It was very difficult for Iran to kill us.

General on this time is very difficult for Iran to kill Israeli representative of the Israeli nuclear military program, so it's very difficult to answer the same level, so they will try made me toe answer another way.

But the timing, once again is not the best time, and for more now I'm joined by Trita Parsi.

He's executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft it's good to see you again.

Trade.

I wanna just throw this to you.

Um, Iran says that the murder weapon or murder technology that was used was made in Israel.

So how realistic is a retaliation by Iran against Israel?

How realistic is that at this point?

Well, as the previous analysts mentioned, the Iranians most likely do not have the capacity of being able to respond proportionately, meaning that they would target on Israeli nuclear scientists inside of Israel, for instance.

The broader problem, though, is that any retaliation by Iran, proportionate or not proportionate Iranian would have great difficulty doing something that would not escalate into a broader conflict.

And it's quite clear that for the last 23 years, the Iranians have been very careful not to give the Trump administration or the Netanyahu government a pretext for a broader war.

But it does not mean that they cannot retaliate in indirect ways.

And we've seen that in the past that the Iranians have found as symmetric ways of exacting a price in Israel when it does assassinate Iranian scientists or conduct other types of attacks against Iran.

I'm wondering what this assassination means for us president elect Joe Biden's hopes of reviving the Iran nuclear deal.

It certainly is not helpful.

And in fact, the consensus is increasingly that this is something that the Netanyahu government did precisely because it wanted to undermine Netanya.

Biden's ability to be able to re enter the nuclear deal and restart negotiations with Iran.

I think it's important for the viewers to keep in mind that at the end of the day, uh, that really worry that Netanyahu has is not that Iran would have a pathway to a nuclear weapon.

It's that Iran would have a pathway to Washington, and that's what this assassination is aimed at preventing.

And what about the role of Israel in this there?

There has been talk over the weekend by some analysts is saying that Israel may be forced this assassination in order to force the hand of the next president.

Joe Biden.

Uh, how do you see that?

I believe certainly, I mean the the Israelis air trying to create a many obstacles as possible for the by the administration to be able to restart negotiations with Iran on we have seen in the past that assassinations of this kind tended to take place at sensitive moments where there waas a likelihood of some form of a diplomatic breakthrough.

They did not happen at moments in which a nassan ation of this kind would have really set back the nuclear program on guy.

Think another aspect that comes through all of this is that it's very unlikely that the Trump administration was not either giving a green light or some support for this.

But Netanyahu must also have calculated that Biden does not have the political will to punish Netanyahu for sabotaging his prospects for diplomacy.

That's a perception Netanyahu seems to have only by that can change that perception.

You know, it's interesting that the perception is key here.

What about Tehran waiting out and holding its tongue and waiting until Joe Biden is the US president?

Do you think that the the will the force of will is in Tehran to wait until January 20th?

Uh, it's going to be tremendously difficult, because from their perspective, they've already shown a tremendous amount of restraint in regards to other attacks that already have taken place in Iran, most likely conducted by the Israelis.

Eso you can definitely sense that there is an increased anger there in which the argument off those who are arguing against restraint is that it's precisely because of Iran's restraint.

That these attacks have continued restraint has begotten mawr assassinations, whereas if the Iranians were to respond really harshly to this, the calculation and Israel would be changing.

But the problem is, if they do that, then the region would likely be at the brink of war.

Trita Parsi with the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft Treaty.

It's good to see you again.

We appreciate your time and your insights tonight.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for having me.