Seyed Hossein Mousavian

Summary:

• the US has been involved in 80% of all the global conflicts and wars since WWII.
•  the U.S. carried out at least 81 interventions in foreign elections during the period 1946–2000.
• the U.S. engaged in 70 attempts at regime change during the Cold War.
• A total of 23 countries are under U.S. sanctions, the US had sanctions on about 10000 individuals, companies, and sectors worldwide that US policymakers.
• In short, the US regional strategy for the Persian Gulf and Middle East

has failed and China is winning the region because Beijing has focused

on technology, trade, cooperation, and investment and not destroying

its resources by engaging in wars, regime change attempts, or sanction

policy in the Middle East.

• The US should reconsider its love affair with sanctions, wars, regime changes, and interferences in other countries because they are actively undermining U.S. interests. The Middle East will never be secure or stable without achieving a just and comprehensive solution to the Palestinian crisis.
• In the absence of US-Iran talks and the failure to revive the nuclear deal, the possibility of regional escalation is greater than it has been in years
• Only if the US pressures Israel to call a ceasefire, helps to find a just and lasting solution to the Palestinian crisis, and then restores the Iran nuclear deal can disaster be averted.
• The leaders of the US and Iran need to find the courage to engage in a broad dialogue to achieve a comprehensive deal, including reviving the temporary agreement and the JCPOA and resolving all other disputed issues.
• If this is unrealistic, the eight countries around the Persian Gulf – Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, and Bahrain – need to strike a grand regional deal on a new security and cooperation structure in the Gulf that includes a regional nuclear deal and a region free from nuclear weapons and all weapons of mass destruction.

The US Needs to:

1. Focus on economic, investment, and technological cooperation rather

than sanctioning and weaponizing.

2. End dangerous and counterproductive policies of war, interference

and regime change.

3. Establish healthy and friendly relations with all countries rather than

creating alliances with some countries against other countries.

4. Support the creation of a new regional security and cooperation system

in the Persian Gulf and hand over the responsibilities to the regional

countries to maintain peace and stability rather than trying to

achieve it with tens of military bases and trillions of dollars.

5. Promote civilian diplomacy to strengthen citizen-to-citizen relations

such as tourism, athletic, academic, cultural, and social relations

based on respecting each other’s religions and cultures rather than

imposing Western cultures.

7. Last but not least, launch a comprehensive dialogue between Iran

and the US to end 40 years of animosity.

https://wetransfer.com/downloads/4c053d03682ef6c6544277431ed2de3f20240120133011/d5b29518d8852e725b71ce671561a73b20240120133011/3a6541

The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and the Workforce announced in mid-November it has launched an investigation into Seyed Hossein Mousavian, who has been a Middle East security and nuclear policy specialist with the School of Public and International Affairs’ (SPIA) Program on Science and Global Security since 2016 and was formerly a high-ranking diplomat in Iran.

Rep. Lisa McClain (R-Mich.) and Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) spearheaded a letter sent to President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 and signed by 10 other Republican committee members — of 45 total members — which included a list of questions about Mousavian and his ties to Iran. 

“Mousavian’s position on the faculty of Princeton for the past 15 years … raises significant concerns about the influence of foreign hostile regimes on American institutions,” the letter said.

The University declined to comment.

In emails to PAW, Mousavian denied that he has been acting on behalf of Iran while at Princeton: “Over the past two decades, as an academic, I’ve used every opportunity to propose peaceful solution to the Iranian nuclear crisis, and dialogue and engagement between Iran and the United States and with other countries such as Saudi Arabia. All my books, articles, speeches, and interviews during 13 years working at Princeton University are about peace, security, stability, and opposing wars and warmongering.”

Mousavian also emphasized his now contentious relationship with Iran, stating he has “not been able to go to Iran since June 2021 and I have not been engaged with any government including the government of Iran since the Iranian court convicted me in 2008,” following his arrest for espionage on behalf of Europeans.

Mousavian has claimed for years that the Iranian Intelligence Service planned to assassinate him in 1996. In 2022, he received an 11-month prison sentence from the Iranian Judiciary, which was one of the factors that prevented him from attending his father’s funeral, for his role in a 2000 real estate deal that went bad after a group of European investors Mousavian introduced to developers failed to comply with contractual commitments.

The committee’s letter asks whether Princeton consulted with U.S. government officials prior to Mousavian’s hiring and if Princeton is aware of any communications between Mousavian and Iranian officials. The committee also asked for a list of classes Mousavian has taught at Princeton, his salary, and if he has received any gifts or funding from foreign or domestic sources, among other things. The document references Xiyue Wang, who was imprisoned in Iran for three years while he was a Princeton doctoral student, and Elizabeth Tsurkov, who was abducted from Iraq in March, by asking if Mousavian made any efforts to free the two students.

In a recent interview with Iran International, Wang said that after his arrest, “I asked Princeton to ask Mousavian to help. And Mousavian decided not to do anything. When you have a person with that level of connections in your institution, you would expect he would act.”

“How can I help an American student arrested in Iran while I even cannot travel to Iran to attend my father’s funeral?” Mousavian asked PAW.

Mousavian has also been criticized by politicians and the news media in the past, most recently for attending the 2020 funeral of Qasem Soleimani, who was considered a terrorist by the United States and was assassinated by a U.S. airstrike during the Trump administration. Mousavian was in Iran at the time to visit his ailing mother, he said, and was interested in public reaction to the assassination. News reports at the time counted millions of mourners. Mousavian’s detractors also cite an interview with an Iranian television station following the event where some say Mousavian appeared to smile as he commented on the fears of an American envoy’s wife that her diplomat husband would be assassinated.

“I have always opposed assassinations and threats of assassination against both Iranian and U.S. nationals because it is against the UN Charter and a violation of international rules and regulations,” Mousavian said in his statement to PAW.

Mousavian was born in Iran, where he started his career as a journalist before turning to politics in the 1980s. From 1990 to 1997, he was Iran’s ambassador to Germany. According to his website, Mousavian helped to secure the release of German, American, and other hostages held in Lebanon in the 1990s and contributed “to the mediation of the largest-ever humanitarian exchange between Israel and Lebanese Hezbollah under Germany’s auspices” from 1995 to 1996.

Upon his return to Iran, Mousavian became head of the foreign relations committee of the National Security Council and “played a role in Iran’s cooperation with the U.S. in Afghanistan against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in 2001,” according to his website.

Mousavian was the chief spokesman for Iran’s nuclear negotiating team from 2003 to 2005, and then became both a foreign policy adviser to the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council and vice president of the Center for Strategic Research for International Affairs, before coming to Princeton in 2009.

The House letter stated: “In recent decades, Mousavian’s relationship with Iran became more complex and unclear.” 

Mousavian told PAW he was one of the academics who “contributed as much as I could to resolve the Iranian nuclear crisis through diplomacy and preventing another war in the Middle East,” which culminated in the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. “That’s all and nothing more.”

According to Fox News Digital, McClain said, “Higher education has bowed down to the radical left and enemies of America for far too long, and the mere fact that a former member of the Iranian regime is given a platform at Princeton is proof.” 

The letter requested a response within six weeks.

https://paw.princeton.edu/article/us-house-committee-investigating-spia-specialists-iranian-ties

In response, Mousavian wrote that “This another lie. The 398-page verdict is published and everyone can have access to it. The Berlin court verdict does not contain any direct or indirect allegations against me.” He added that German authorities never forced him to leave the country and that the court verdict was issued in April 1997, and his seven-year assignment as ambassador was terminated less than a year later in early 1998. “Since then, I have been a frequent visitor to Germany,” he added.

“However, a group of rogue elements at the Iranian intelligence Service plotted to assassinate me during my mission in Germany as the Ambassador, but they were unsuccessful,” he wrote. Later, the killing team were arrested in Iran and confessed that they planned to assassinate me in Germany during December 1996 Christmas holidays actually a few months before the Mykonos Court verdict which issued in April 1997.”