FAS, AEI and Department of Military Science sponsor panel on Iran and al-Qaida

A panel on Iran and al-Qaida drew a standing-room only crowd to Charles Commons on Wednesday evening. Political Science Professor Steven David was the moderator for the event, which was sponsored by the Foreign Affairs Symposium (FAS), the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) Executive Council and the Department of Military Science.

The panelists included Maseh Zarif, an Iran expert and the deputy director of AEI’s Critical Threats Project, and Katie Zimmerman, an al-Qaida expert and senior analyst also from AEI.

Both Zimmerman and Zarif spoke for ten minutes followed by prepared questions from David and a Q&A session with the audience. 

Zarif began by discussing the nuclear program in Iran. One of Zarif’s major concerns was how a potential settlement could lead to fewer restrictions on the program.

“If you accept the premise that Iran has been pursuing nuclear weapons capability at a minimum right now, which all the evidence that we have suggests that they are, then I think it follows that they are not going to be willing to accept a deal that undercuts their pursuit. So that is why I have deep skepticism at what is going on,” Zarif said.

Zarif said he had concerns about Iran’s resistance to altering its nuclear program. He emphasized that the state of the relationship between the United States and Iran since 1979 has complicated U.S. foreign policy in a number of areas including in Syria.

Following Zarif, Zimmerman focused on defining al-Qaida and how it currently operates. He said that the the counterterrorism response from the U.S., including the continuation of Bush administration policies, has been ineffective. 

“This administration has doubled down on the idea that al-Qaida is limited to a set of about a dozen to two dozen senior individuals who are based out of Af-Pak [Afghanistan-Pakistan], and that killing these off will lead to some kind of victory,” Zimmerman said.

He said that the growth of al-Qaida has been driven in the years since 9/11 by the increasingly decentralized nature of the terror network. The fracturing of al-Qaida, he added, has complicated the ability of the U.S. and its allies to protect against attacks.

“We all know what al-Qaida is, we know it’s bad and we know we want to act against it. Al-Qaida recognizes that America has this policy and so has taken efforts keep its name in secret, to keep its actions covert, and to actually confuse policy-makers as to where it is and where it isn’t,” Zimmerman said. 

Following their introductions, David asked Zarif about how America can respond to the Iranian nuclear program and followed up by asking Zimmerman about the legitimacy of the threat of al-Qaida in the post-9/11 world.

Students actively participated by engaging the speakers in a discussion about whether a hawkish approach to Iran would benefit the U.S. and whether unilateral action could expand to multilateral action in the event of a military confrontation.

“AEI at Johns Hopkins hopes to enrich campus political life by bringing in speakers and generating student discussion on our nation’s most pressing issues,” Chris Winer, an AEI on Campus executive council member, wrote in an email to The News-Letter. “AEI is one of the most prestigious think tanks in the world and my group believes that its mission of expanding liberty, increasing individual opportunity and strengthening free enterprise promotes global prosperity and security. We welcome the opportunity to expand the ideological diversity at Johns Hopkins and working with other groups to improve our great university.”