The clerics who really run Iran for strike on Israel

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS -- The cabal of clerics who really run Iran called Thursday for retaliation against Israel for rubbing out one of their top nuclear scientists.

Speaking through a hard-line Tehran newspaper that sometimes serves as their mouthpiece, they demanded an eye-for-an-eye for the death of Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan.

“Those corrupt people are easy to identify and are within our reach,” Hossein Shariatmadari, the chief editor Kayhan, wrote in an editorial.

“Assassinating army officials and senior leaders in the Zionist government is very easy.”

The Israelis have not claimed credit for the killing of Roshan, which was done like something out of “Mission Impossible” with two assassins on motorcycles attaching a magnetic bomb to Roshan’s car and roaring off while the vehicle — and the scientist — were blown apart.

But in recent months the Israelis have dropped heavy hints that a covert war against Iran was underway.

“Israeli military chief Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz in his recent remarks spoke about damaging Iran’s nuclear program,” Shariatmadari reminded his readers.

The day before the Roshan rubout, Gantz was quoted as telling a parliamentary panel that 2012 would be a “critical year” for Iran — in part because of “things that happen to it unnaturally.”

Roshan, 32, was the fifth top Iranian scientist involved in the Islamic country’s hush-hush nuclear project to be assassinated.

And Roshan, deputy director of the Natanz uranium enrichment facility, is the fourth to fall prey to motorcycle-riding executioners.

The aim of the killers appears to be to wipe out Iran’s nuclear brain trust and short-circuit their attempt to produce a weapon that poses a direct threat to the Jewish state.

The Iranians, whose country is a major oil producer, insist their nuclear ambitions are peaceful.

After the killing Wednesday, the Iranians quickly blamed Israeli agents backed by the U.S. and Britain.

Secretary of State Clinton denied any U.S. role in the slaying, and the Obama administration condemned the attack.

Not the Israelis.

“I don’t know who took revenge on the Iranian scientist, but I am definitely not shedding a tear,” Israeli military spokesman Brigadier General Yoav Mordechai posted on his official Facebook page.

For months, Iran and the West have been heading for a showdown. The U.S. has been tightening sanctions against Tehran and the Iranians have responded by threatening to block the Strait of Hormuz, a vital oil-shipping waterway.

Amid the saber ratting, the U.S. Navy has twice rescued captured Iranian mariners from pirates.

Meanwhile, trapped in the middle, is an Iranian-American ex-Marine who was arrested and accused of being a spy while he was visiting kin in Tehran.

Amir Hekmati, 29, worked for New York-based Kuma Games, whose best known video game is called “Assault on Iran.”

Iran claims the outfit is a CIA front whose goal is to turn gamers against them.

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