MSU Muslim Studies Program hosts lecture about Iran

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The conflict in the Middle East might be old news, but to the crowd of about 50 people who attended a lecture about Iran and the politics surrounding it, the topic still felt relevant.

The MSU Muslim Studies Program hosted the lecture, titled Iran at the Crossroads, on Thursday.

The event examined Iran’s domestic and international situation today, focusing on its relationship with the U.S.

“The main reason for organizing this is that Iran has been in the news in the past few years both because of the political tensions within the country and disagreements with the United States, especially regarding Iran’s controversial nuclear program,” said Mohammed Ayoob, a political science professor and coordinator of the MSU Muslim Studies Program who organized the event.

“Iran is seen as a laboratory domestically for the development of democratic politics in a system that is largely Islamic.”

The event’s two presenters offered their views on several major issues surrounding Iran, such as nuclear weapon development and how President Barack Obama’s administration is handling the situation in Iran.

“I think Americans are generally very ignorant about contemporary Iranian politics,” said Nader Hashemi, an assistant professor of Middle East and Islamic politics at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver.

“United States foreign policy both in the past and present has undermined the struggle for democracy in Iran.”

Hashemi and Mehran Kamrava, director of the Center for International and Regional Studies and interim dean for the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University’s campus in Doha, Qatar, both discussed how Iran faces multiple decisions at this point in its history.

Although conflict is not new to the Middle East, Kamrava said the current situation is significant because of the Iranian people’s post-election response.

“The level, the depth and breath of political turmoil following the election surprised not just people in positions of power, but the mass at-large,” Kamrava said.

“It was called in the Amnesty International report the ‘Worst human rights crack down in the last 20 years,’” Hashemi said.

“Hopefully they can be … more informed about the topic and be able to participate in a public debate about this country and do so with better knowledge and a better sense of what challenges and obstacles are,” Hashemi said.

Ayoob said the disputed presidential election in Iran last June and suspicions in the West regarding Iran’s nuclear program “make it an important subject from the perspective of an American audience.”

International relations and psychology junior Courtney Swisher said she has a specialization in Muslim Studies and decided to attend the event because it sounded interesting.

“I think it’s a part of the world that’s really misunderstood by American culture,” Swisher said. “I didn’t learn anything about the subject of Islam until I got to college in my junior year and I feel that’s really pathetic.”

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