Kathmandu. Iranian president has blamed Israel for the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. The incident has sparked immense outrage and Iran has vowed to take measures as revenge for the scientist’s death. He was given a state funeral with full military honors.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei promised to “find the perpetrators of the plot and follow up on (Fakhrizadeh’s) research efforts.” Fakhrizadeh was a driving force to build nuclear weapons, an effort that US intelligence says was abandoned around two decades ago.

Iran has already started its response by accelerating its civil nuclear program. It will contravene the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) which President Trump abandoned in 2018, increasing the uranium levels. Stepping up the nuclear program can be Iran’s way of showing the world the assassination will withstand the nuclear activity of Iran.

Another response from Iran could be using proxies. Iran has a number of ‘proxy’ militias that it funds. It has now a wide range of options that it could choose to activate: it could instruct Hezbollah in Lebanon or Hamas in Gaza to fire rockets at Israel, force the Shia militias in Iraq to attack the declining US presence there or force Yemeni Houthis to escalate their attacks in Saudi Arabia. Yet all of these could pose a threat of counter-response.

The third option could be responding in kind, meaning to assassinate a similar figure like Fakhrizadeh in Israel. Abas Aslani, a senior research fellow at the Tehran-based Center for Middle East Strategic Studies says, “The important thing about the timing is who the response will be directed at. If it’s just Israel, it’s even possible that a response will come before the inauguration.” He added that at least a part of Iran’s response will be military in nature. “But Iran will also look to get condemnations on the assassination from countries and international organizations through politically following up on the issue.”

The last option for response by Iran is to do nothing. Although this option seems unlikely, it could be considered as an option for now. New president-elect Biden has promised to bring back the deal that president Trump abandoned, which could be beneficial for Iran. Iran also has elections upcoming in June, therefore halting their response also could be an option.