Mark Wallace: Growing USF should not endanger its progress with connection to Iran

Iran's foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

The University of South Florida (USF) and its Center for Strategic & Diplomatic Studies recently sponsored a conference with a prominent think tank, the Atlantic Council. It should be a cause for celebration that USF is continuing to assert itself as a growing force in academia.

But this was not an ordinary event.

Until days before the conference, the primary draw of this gathering was a keynote speech from Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif — a senior insider of the world’s leading state-sponsor of terrorism worldwide.

The decision to place Zarif on that perch was bewildering. It would have been damaging, inappropriate and amoral.

To be clear, USF’s decision to continue Zarif’s involvement in the program would’ve been a self-inflicted wound with long-lasting implications. It could’ve caused legislators to question the wisdom of appropriating more than $420 million in taxpayer money this fiscal year to the institution.

And it would’ve been a galling insult to the nearly 2,000 veterans presently enrolled in the university. Iran, as they know, is responsible for the deaths of more than 1,000 U.S. soldiers.

Iran’s ruling regime finances terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in its proxy wars in the Middle East and around the world. It trains Taliban fighters in bomb-making and weapons training. Its leaders and military are working tirelessly to prop up the Assad regime in Syria. It has been implicated over the last several months in bombing and assassination plots against civilians and government officials on European soil.

And Zarif is the so-called respectable mouthpiece for their policies.

Further, the Atlantic Council has a long history of engagement with the Iranian regime, something that should trouble USF leadership and Floridians alike.

The Atlantic Council previously hosted a private briefing with Zarif in 2015, during which he shared insight on Iran’s plans for implementing the JCPOA, the future of US-Iran relations, and answered questions regarding Iran’s role in its region.

Atlantic Council leadership makes frequent trips to Iran and was among a small group of individuals who met with Zarif in New York in 2018 to discuss the Trump Administration’s Iran policy. In addition, the Atlantic Council is supported financially by the Ploughshares Fund, a group that vocally supported the implementation of the flawed JCPOA agreement.

It is extremely troubling that USF and the Atlantic Council were willing to afford Zarif the credibility and platform he and his regime crave in 2019. It would have assisted Iran in advancing a radical and murderous agenda — spread through propaganda, indoctrination and lies.

There are quite simply no favorable arguments to be made to use the good name of a growing university and tie it to an official of a murderous regime. Not free speech. Not academic freedom or open inquiry. Certainly not any moral reason, either.

The risk is so far out of proportion to the theoretical benefits of giving a professional apologist a prominent platform.

Last year, in a credit to its students, faculty and administrators, USF was designated as a research institution on par with the University of Florida and Florida State University. USF is now recognized as one of Florida’s best state universities and it can credibly anticipate forthcoming recognition as one of our nation’s top public institutions. Its faculty is world class and leading scholars are increasingly attracted to the Tampa campus.

It’s willingness to be tied to a rogue regime like Iran threatens to undo decades of progress.

USF would surely think twice before lending its name to an event providing a soapbox for the Kim regime in North Korea, the Assad regime in Syria, or other international outlaws. USF, its faculty and its students need to understand that Iran is on par with, or worse, than each of those rogue regimes.

Floridians appreciate that USF worked hard to distance itself from its checkered history, but the lessons learned of memories past must not be forgotten.

USF has had not one, but two of its past faculty indicted for ties to terrorist organizations. Ramadan Shallah, formerly an adjunct professor of Middle Eastern politics, is the secretary-general and leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization since 1997. Shallah remains wanted by the FBI to this day. Sami Al-Arian, formerly a professor of computer science at USF, pleaded guilty to supporting Shallah’s PIJ and was deported. As recently as last year, Al-Arian called America “our enemy” and criticized America’s long-standing alliance with Israel.

Terror ties are not what the university wants to be known for or should be known for, but flirtations with the Iranian regime have to end. Continuing down this path would be, frankly, the height of irresponsibility.

Despite the Zarif appearance being sidelined, USF leaders need to be held accountable for their decision to give him a platform in the first place. The public deserves to know who approved USF’s sponsorship of this event with the Atlantic Council.

And it should disavow itself of any possibility of further engagement with either Zarif, a terrorist frontman or his handlers.

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Florida native Mark D. Wallace, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations for management and reform, is the CEO of United Against Nuclear Iran.