The new close relationship between China and Iran has birthed a new threat. Like China has in the past found campus life useful for pushing the People’s Republic of China (PRC) agenda, Iran is now popping up on college campuses to spread propaganda on the virtues of the number one sponsor of global terrorism and to cast Israel as the villain in the region. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard (IRCG) is coming for your kids attending universities.
A recent National Review article by Eitan Fischberger warned about this unsettling development. If you thought Middle East anti-Israel rhetoric was an ocean away, you might want to rethink. As Fischberger warned:
“If your son or daughter told you that a terrorist organization just gave a lecture at their college, would you believe them? Far from a hypothetical scenario, this question confronted parents of students at British universities after a recent expośe revealed that eight Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps leaders spoke at multiple UK campuses since 2020 in talks arranged by an Islamic student association.”
The IRGC propaganda problem is resident in London at the moment, but, as Fischberger explained, the Iran-inspired, hate-filled messages are only as far away as a computer website. Student groups are easy targets and often unwitting accomplices. “Senior commanders from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps are using a London-based student organization to pipe extremist antisemitic propaganda and calls for violence into British universities,” David Rose explained in The Jewish Chronicle.
No On-Campus Protection From Iran
Furthermore, there is no protection offered by university administrators and faculty to prevent the IRGC from spreading its venomous disinformation. “In 2020 and 2021, (a) San Francisco State University (SFSU) department tried to host a convicted PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) airplane hijacker, Leila Khaled, for an online conference. The event with the PFLP hijacker was canceled following tech platforms refusing to air the event,” Elliot Nazar reported in The Foreign Desk. At least some techie figured out that giving a platform to a no-kidding terrorist was not such a good idea. The mindless SFSU leadership didn’t get it. They couldn’t grasp the implication that maybe the university would be perceived as supporting terrorism.
(Photo by Erin Clark/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
Having the IRGC insinuate itself into campus life follows the model of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the United States. Naïve universities invite CCP operatives and spies to be part of the student body and faculty, assuming that the free expression of ideas is a shared ideal. Only recently has there been an effort to stop Confucius Institutes from setting up espionage shops at US colleges. Some higher learning institutions have figured out that the CCP is not a friend of scholarship.
Iran Follows Confucius Model
A June 2023 report titled “How Many Confucius Institutes Are in the United States,” published by the National Association of Scholars (NAS), concluded:
“Since 2004, the Chinese government has sponsored Confucius Institutes on college and university campuses around the world, providing teachers, textbooks, and operating funds. NAS’s 2017 report, Outsourced to China: Confucius Institutes and Soft Power in American Higher Education, found that Confucius Institutes undermine academic integrity and import censorship.”
Universities are not the only targets for CCP and Iranian spying and disinformation. The US scientific community also has a bull’s-eye on its chest. As reported in Liberty Nation, US laboratories had Chinese scientists and researchers working on sensitive technology projects, and Iran is adopting the same approach. “Watchdog organizations like United Against a Nuclear Iran found that several American universities are working on ‘technical research’ with Iranian entities sanctioned by the US,” Nazar reported.
“Iran continues to be the leading state sponsor of terrorism, facilitating a wide range of terrorist and other illicit activities around the world,” is the US State Department’s assessment of Tehran’s place in the community of nations. Americans don’t need Iran’s propaganda proliferating on campuses. Wake up, administrators.
