December 1, 2023
A US House of Represen-tatives committee has announced it is launching an investigation into former Iranian diplomat Hossein Mou-savian and Princeton University over allegations that Mousavian used his position at Princeton to advance the interests of the Islamic Republic.
The House Committee on Education and the Workforce announced November 16 that it is launching the investigation. Twelve Republican committee members wrote a letter to University President Christopher Eisgruber with 10 questions to start their investigation. No Democratic members of the committee signed the letter.
Mousavian was hired by Princeton in 2009 as a Middle East Security and Nuclear Policy Specialist. Before that, he was a prominent figure in the Iranian government. He served as the Iranian ambassador to Germany from 1990 to 1997. From 1997 to 2007, Mousavian was on the staff of the Supreme National Security Council. He also served as vice president of the Center for Strategic Research and worked for the Expediency Council’s Center for Strategic Research from 2005 to 2008.
In 2007, Mousavian was arrested following accusations from President Mahmud Ahmadi-nejad, who charged Mousavian leaked information to Europeans during their nuclear negotiations with Iran. Mou-savian was on the Iranian negotiating team.
In an email to The Daily Princetonian, Mousavian attached a list of responses to each allegation in the House committee’s letter. Regarding any continued connection with the Iranian government, Mou-savian wrote, “I have 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.” He added that he was not able to attend his father’s funeral in Iran in November 2022.
United Against a Nuclear Iran (UANI) earlier called for an investigation into an invitation given to Mousavian to speak before a group at the US military’s Strategic Command, which operates US nuclear weapons.
“My talk at the US Strategic Command was all about peace in the Middle East and why the US should avoid wars and focus on peace and cooperation,” Mousavian wrote.
In February 2022, UANI also called for Mousavian to be fired from Princeton for his attendance at the funeral of Qasem Soleymani, whom the US assassinated in 2020.
In his email to the Princetonian, Mousavian addressed his alleged support for Soleymani. He wrote, “This is a manufactured fake story created by certain lobbies in Washington which are interested in dragging the US to attack Iran, another disaster for the US and the region.” He said he attended the funeral to see the public reaction to the assassination.
Frank von Hippel, a senior research physicist at Princeton and a close colleague of Mousavian’s, wrote in an email to the Princetonian that “this [current investigation] is more of a fishing expedition to see if they can find some dirt. I am afraid they will be disappointed.”
In its letter to Princeton, the House committee said, “Despite his supposed disaffiliation with the Iranian government, Mousavian’s ability to travel freely to the United States and act as an unofficial representative while discussing US-Iranian ties has left his relationship with the Iranian government unclear. Other Iranian regime officials confirm that, while Mou-savian left Iran, he did not cease to serve the regime. In a 2016 interview, then-Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad-Javad Zarif said that he did not believe ‘the accusations of espionage against him [Mousavian],’ that Mou-savian ‘continued to and continues to, work hard’ for Iran, and that he ‘believes in, and is completely tied to, the system of the Islamic Republic and Iran’.”