On Iran: Professors Discuss Implications of Current Events

On Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 the Roosevelt Institute chapter at UCLA hosted a talk on the regional implications of recent developments in Iran with Professor Hossein Ziai, Director of the UCLA Iranian Studies Department and Dr. Kassem Nabulsi, a professor at Cal State Northridge and an expert on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Over 75 students attended the event, which was scheduled to last an hour from 7:00 to 8:00 P.M., however, the intensity of the discussion topic kept the students and professors engaged in discussion until half past eight. 

Professor Hossein Ziai presented his thoughts first on the current affairs in Iran and he emphasized several points:

• While we have international organizations like the UN and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the reports are circular and no solutions are implemented --> basically nothing is getting done
• Regarding Iran's organization and conduct
  • Systematic lies: disseminates incorrect information to their own people and to foreigners
  • Iran's regime currently practices barbaric abuses against basic human rights, and the West needs to take a positive and strong moral stand against these abuses
  • Systematic approval and funding of all terrorists groups
• The Iranian people themselves do not have direct issues with Jewish people, it is the Iranian regime led by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who is insisting upon the destruction of the state of Israel and trying to indoctrinate its population with anti-semitic feelings
• Solution? It would be a grave mistake to believe Iran is trying to change internally because with its current regime and systematic lies we are asking for a future distaste
  • We must do something now --find a resolve now-- before the situation and issues escalate to such an extreme level where one may use the excuse of necessity for bloodshed (especially the use of nuclear arms)
  • Any resolve that is decided upon will have repercussions and opposition, however, we must pick a solution and go with it because it's better than waiting and allowing the situation to escalate 

Afterwards, Dr. Kassem Nabulsi presented ideas from his thesis, which is politically controversial, however empirically supported by evidence: it's an identity issue

• Middle east has been the center of crises for the past three decades
  • Multiple wars and civil wars, all of which were caused by issues not directly related to the state of Israel
  • Leaders in the middle east predict that the next war will take place over the availability of water, not over oil 
  • --> The core source of these conflicts is identity and figuring out what one's identity is, retaining one's identity, resisting transformations to one's identity, etc. 

Afterwards, the students and the guest speakers, Professor Hossein Ziai and Dr. Kassem Nabulsi, engaged in a conversion about the influence of historical patterns on today's Middle East and the implications of current affairs of the future composition of the Middle East.

Props to UCLA's chapter. Good work.