“Why would the Iranians want to assassinate our ambassador to SA? Does anybody care about SA? Nobody would give a hoot.”
Trump nominated Linda Marks and she has been in office since January. My guess is they selected her for perceived personal connections to Trump. Also, it’s possible they have sufficient state controlled assets in place in SA to carry off an assassination. Any other country would be a hassle. In SA all they have to do is add it to the agenda.
I suspect the plan would be to have a proxy do it so they could claim both credit and that they didn’t do it directly. I don’t think their reasoning would stop Trump from working over some targets deep in Iran. It’s an election year and it would be a gift to him if he had a legitimate reason to bomb the Hell out of some oil refineries and storage tanks.
Having been to South Africa in the past two years, I would offer this observation.
First, there are literally thousands of young unemployed men, and hundreds of ‘gangs’ in the country where you could hire up thirty guys to conduct some raid of a party or shopping center where the ambassador conducts her business. Waving a million dollars at a 30-member gang would not be that difficult.
Second, the police in SA are probably among the most inept that you might ever run across.
Third, there are dozens of ghetto districts that the gang can retreat into, and disappear.
Fourth, even if a threat exists...I don’t think the government of SA would do anything to lessen the threat or send a message to Iran. Things are so screwed up....that they literally wouldn’t care.