When Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan was killed in a Jan. 11 car bombing, it triggered a slew of angry criticism from the progressive blogosphere. Now that Roshan's wife, Fatemeh Bolouri Kashani, has publicly stated that her husband's "ultimate goal was the annihilation of Israel," it will be interesting to see if any of those who denounced his slaying have second thoughts.

Fars News Agency reported that Mrs. Kashani "underlined that her spouse loved any resistance figure in his life who was willing to fight the Zionist regime and supported the rights of the oppressed Palestinian nation."

Israel is widely suspected of killing Roshan, a supervisor at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility, which is believed to play a key role in Iranian efforts to produce weapons-grade uranium. "I don't know who took revenge on the Iranian scientist, but I'm definitely not shedding a tear," Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, Israel's military spokesman, said last month.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton strenuously denied Washington was involved. "I want to categorically deny any United States involvement in any kind of act of violence inside Iran," she said.

Clinton's denial didn't go far enough for the Los Angeles Times, which complained that Washington had not made a "strong statement that the United States decries political assassinations." The Times added that "state-sponsored extrajudicial killing is a serious violation of international law, and car-bomb assassination is a tactic little different from the methods used by terrorists."

Assassinating nuclear scientists is "morally bankrupt" and "If Israel is involved, it is a shameful and foolish policy," the paper said.

There remains debate about whether Iran's nuclear program is for peaceful means, as the mullahs claim, or to develop the means to act on threats and create a new holocaust. It's difficult to see how nuclear scientist's widow's emphasis on his dream of annihilating Israel fits with a program solely designed to produce energy.