NEW: US, Mexico Thwarted Iran Assassination Plot Targeting Israeli Ambassador

To quote Bugs Bunny: Of course, you know … this means war. Literally speaking. If the allegations from US intelligence and Mexican authorities prove true, the Iranians attempted an assassination against an Israeli diplomat from their own embassy in Venezuela and planned to use Mexico as their battlefield. That is an act of war in any definition of the term.

The only question that remains is what the Israelis plan to do about it, not to mention the Claudia Sheinbaum administration in Mexico. The timing, though, may make a response less acute:

Mexico thwarted an Iran-directed terror attack aimed at harming the Israeli ambassador to the country, the Foreign Ministry shared on Friday.

The announcement by the ministry came hours after N12 published that American and Israeli officials confirmed the IRGC planned an attack against Ambassador Einat Kranz-Neiger as part of a wider attack on Israeli and American interests in the region.

Planned throughout 2024, the IRGC planned to kill the ambassador in early 2025 in a now-thwarted plot. American officials assured N12 that there is no longer an active threat.

One reason why the Israelis may not respond is that the plot got unraveled before the Twelve-Day War this summer. That may have put paid to the attempted act of war. However, the Israelis may want some action from Venezuela before they drop it altogether:

American sources told N12 that large components of the attacks were planned from the Iranian embassy in Venezuela and were led by Hassan Izadi.

Axios reports that the IRGC organized this across Latin America last year:

Behind the scenes: The plan was hatched by the same Quds Force unit of the IRGC — the shadowy Unit 11000 — that in recent months allegedly tried to conduct attacks against Jewish and Israeli targets in Australia and Europe, according to sources familiar with the matter.

• It was initiated at the end of 2024 and led by a Unit 11000 operative who spent several years handling and recruiting Iranian agents across Latin America out of Iran’s embassy in Venezuela, a source with knowledge said. By the time the plan was in motion, the operative had returned to Quds Force headquarters in Tehran.
• A U.S. official said the assassination plot was active through the first half of 2025 before being thwarted over the summer. “The plot was contained and does not pose a current threat,” the U.S. official said.
• Iran’s mission to the UN declined to comment.

What they’re saying: “This is just the latest in a long history of assassination attempts by Iran around the world targeting diplomats, journalists, dissidents, and anyone who disagrees with them — something that should deeply concern every country where there is an Iranian presence,” the U.S. official said.

So what now? First, Mexico should expel Iranian diplomats over this attempt to use their country as a battlefield. I doubt that Nicolas Maduro will be bothered in the least by Iranians conducting acts of war from their capital, not unless Donald Trump decides to make an issue of it. And he well might, since Trump is already looking for pretexts to escalate military pressure on the Maduro regime. 

In fact, as John Hinderaker points out at Power Line, Trump has already been talking about escalation. Yesterday, Senate Republicans defeated a resolution to instruct Trump not to take military action against Maduro. John argues that the military build-up has its own mathematics at this point:

When asked a few days ago whether the United States will go to war with Venezuela, President Trump responded, “I doubt it. I don’t think so. But they’ve been treating us very badly.” Still, a military buildup of the sort now underway contains its own logic. For those forces to hang around the Caribbean for a while and then disperse would be a rather embarrassing climb-down. One assumes that Trump would not assemble such forces unless he intends, in some fashion, to use them–or at least be prepared to use them if the threat of an attack fails to dislodge Maduro from power, as it in all likelihood will.

Does Trump want regime change in Venezuela? Of course he does, as we all should. The question is, what is he prepared to do to accomplish it? Given Trump’s aversion to war, the answer is more likely to involve covert actions and limited air strikes, in hopes of triggering an internal revolt, than a major attack. But Maduro has long hung on to power despite overwhelming unpopularity, and it seems doubtful that anything short of a substantial use of American power will unseat him.

Participation in an assassination plot against a key American ally would give some pretext for military action, although the passage of time since then may work against it. Trump could use this to escalate demands on Maduro, including the expulsion of Iranian interests, with US military force as the consequence of defiance. We acted in a similar manner against Manuel Noriega in Panama for arguably lesser pretexts than this.

Clearly, we aren’t going to put the same kind of pressure on Sheinbaum, but Trump will likely still insist on kicking Iranians out. Mexico needs to keep trading and engaging with the Trump administration, and if Trump decides to make an issue of this with Sheinbaum, she will have a tough time trying to work with both Iran and the US. 

The Israelis, of course, are not going to forgive or forget this. They may chalk up their response to the destruction already wrought in the Twelve-Day War, but if I were in Tehran, I wouldn’t bet on it. 

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