Throughout the academic year, Columbia University holds a series of seminars, bringing together members of the university faculty and, as they put it, “experts and specialists in nonacademic pursuits,” and “authorities in many fields of scholarship as speakers in guests” to focus on a variety of topics.
The Middle East Seminar taking place today (5/2) at Columbia promises a “carefully-defined and informed evaluation of stubborn problems in a region that symbolizes mounting instability and proliferating crises.” So who did Columbia choose to invite as a speaker, out of all the notable possibilities, to address this pressing issue? None other than Iran’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Mohammad Javad Zarif.
While it would seem rather strange to most clear-thinking individuals to invite the representative of a rogue nation, which is currently at odds with the international community over its leadership’s insistence on developing nuclear weaponry, not to mention taking British soldiers hostage, threatening to wipe out entire nations, holding Holocaust denial conferences, repressing its own citizenry, and actively aiding the so-called insurgency in Iraq in its slaughter of civilians and soldiers alike, Columbia University apparently felt that Zarif would be the best candidate to address the “proliferating crises” in the Middle East.
One has to wonder what Middle East seminar co-chairs J.C. Hurewitz, professor emeritus of government at Columbia and creator of the Middle East Seminar, and Lawrence Potter, adjunct associate professor of international affairs and staff associate of the Middle East Institute at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), were thinking when they chose Zarif as a speaker. That it’s his third time addressing the Columbia University Seminar series doesn’t help.
The fawning language employed in the seminar invitation (most of which is re-posted below) co-authored by Hurewitz and Gary Sick, an adjunct professor of international affairs and a senior research scholar at the Middle East Institute at SIPA, provides some clues. It begins with this description of Zarif:
Ambassador Zarif has excellent academic credentials, including a PhD in international relations at the University of Denver. He is also talented diplomat, but he is much more than that, as reflected in a recent article about his rare visit to Washington in March.
Predictably, the excerpts from the Washington Post article in question quoted in the invitation include only admiring commentary on Zarif from various politicians and Washington think tank representatives during his visit last month to the capital.
Conveniently left out of the invitation are damning quotes from Kenneth Timmerman, executive director of the Foundation for Democracy in Iran and author of Countdown to Crisis: The Coming Nuclear Showdown With Iran, and former U.N. ambassador, John Bolton.
Also left out of the invitation is the fact, noted in the Washington Post article, that Zarif, following the “rules of the revolutionary Islamic regime…won’t shake a woman’s hand.” Let’s hope none of the female participants at Columbia’s Middle East Seminar are expecting a handshake from their esteemed guest.
The seminar invitation concludes with these statements:
Amb. Zarif has been an excellent friend to Columbia, to SIPA and to the Seminar, where he has spoken on two previous occasions. For this meeting, we have asked him to reflect on the state of U.S.-Iran relations.
… It is a special pleasure to welcome Javad Zarif back to the Seminar for what is certain to be a fascinating perspective on Iran, the United States, and the crucial foreign policy issues in the Persian Gulf, by one of the most experienced observers of our time.
Something tells me Zarif will hardly provide a sunny assessment of America’s role in its relations with Iran, despite the fact that the latter continues to be the belligerent party in its dealings with those elements of the international community not sympathetic to its aims of a “world without Zionism” and a “world without America.”
An excellent friend to Columbia indeed.
The invitation to the seminar (excluding irrelevant information) follows:
TO MEMBERS OF THE UNIVERSITY SEMINAR ON THE MIDDLE EAST
FROM: J.C. Hurewitz and Gary Sick
The eighth and final meeting of the Seminar in this academic year will be on Wednesday, May 2.
It is only fitting that for this final meeting we have as our speaker Ambassador Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Permanent Representative to the United Nations of the Islamic Republic of Iran, who is finishing five eventful years in New York and returning soon to Tehran.
Ambassador Zarif has excellent academic credentials, including a PhD in international relations at the University of Denver. He is a also talented diplomat, but he is much more than that, as reflected in a recent article about his rare visit to Washington in March.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/14/AR2007041401595.html
Here is a passage from that article:
“Zarif is a tough advocate but he’s also pragmatic, not dogmatic. He can play an important role in helping to resolve our significant differences with Iran peacefully,” Democrat Joe Biden said afterward. Noting his previous talks with the Iranian envoy, Republican Chuck Hagel called for “direct engagement” between Washington and Tehran. “Isolating nations does not fix problems,” Hagel said.
During Zarif’s talk with Democrat Dianne Feinstein, Majority Leader Harry Reid and Republican John Warner of the Armed Services Committee dropped by to have a word. “I find him to be a positive, reasonable figure, and it would be useful if he could stay at the U.N.,” Feinstein said later.
Similar encomiums were heard as Zarif made the rounds of Washington think tanks. At a luncheon hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations, Martin Indyk, the former ambassador to Israel, turned to the Iranian envoy and said, “We’re going to miss you.”
At a dinner hosted by the Nixon Center, its president, Dmitri Simes, introduced Zarif as “one of the most impressive diplomats I’ve met anywhere. He obviously is a strong spokesman for his country, but he knows how to do it with eloquence and credibility.”
All this transpired in just over 24 hours -- the time limit dictated by a special State Department permit that allowed him to leave the 25-mile quarantine imposed on Iranian diplomats at the United Nations. . . .”
Amb. Zarif has been an excellent friend to Columbia, to SIPA and to the Seminar, where he has spoken on two previous occasions. For this meeting, we have asked him to reflect on the state of U.S.-Iran relations.
...It is a special pleasure to welcome Javad Zarif back to the Seminar for what is certain to be a fascinating perspective on Iran, the United States, and the crucial foreign policy issues in the Persian Gulf, by one of the most experienced observers of our time.
