Wednesday, March 4, students, faculty and Williamsburg community members assembled in the Integrated Science Center to hear professors from the College of William and Mary explain the ongoing war in the Middle East.
Director of the GRI and George and Mary Hylton Professor of International Relations Mike Tierney ’87 moderated the panel discussion among assistant professor of history and international relations Peyman Jafari, assistant professor of government and co-principal investigator of the Arab Elections project Ameni Mehrez and associate professor of government and Director of NukeLab Jeffrey Kaplow.
The discussion focused on the nature and consequences of U.S. military action in Iran. Each speaker had ten minutes to deliver their speech before the floor was opened for audience questions.
Jafari first reflected on his experience as a student during the Iraq War and as an Iranian refugee.
“Back then, exaggerations and fabrications were used to manufacture consent, to justify the Iraq War, while many of us at that time were saying this is going to be disastrous,” he said. “I was born in Iran. I fled the country with my parents. I’m a refugee. There is nothing more than democracy that I want to see for Iran and the Iranians and everybody, because we’re also living in a country where democracy is being pulled out.”
Jafari then presented the reasons this war would undermine democracy.
“Whatever happens after the war to the lives of ordinary Iranians and their political system is of no interest at all,” Jafari said. “This is even more the case for the Israeli state, which envisions a serious scenario for Iran, maybe, a fragmenting, failed state that can be bombed at will.”
Jafari clarified how the actions of the U.S. administration demonstrate that its closest allies are not democratic, stable states in exhibit two.
“Some of its best allies in the region and Iran are actually very notorious totalitarian states, including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Putin, of course, you name it,” he said.
Jafari pointed to comparative and historical studies in exhibit three, referencing the book “Catastrophic Success” by Alexander Downes.
“While military interventions often succeed in removing dictators, they substantially increase the risk of civil war, insurgency and violent political instability in the years that follow,” Jafari said.
Jafari provided a rundown of the United States’ history of domestic autocrats and foreign intervention. He also expanded on how Iran’s nuclear program led to direct conflict.
“Internationally, this opened up the path to a conflict between the United States and Iran because with the reimposition of the sanctions, Iran could not hit back with sanctions,” Jafari said. “Iran is a very small economy; boycotting the United States would be meaningless. So they started to sabotage oil trade, transport in the region, attacking, for instance, Saudi installations.”
Mehrez opened her discussion with three major commentaries: who was for the attack, who was involved in the attacks and who opposed the attacks.
“When it comes to who was against this war, who’s against these strikes, we can actually say that most countries in the region, including Gulf countries, Arab countries, were always pushing for more diplomacy and non-confrontation between the United States and Iran,” she said.
To analyze public reactions to the war, Mehrez considered two perspectives: how the public initially reacted based on news and public opinion surveys.
“Some people celebrate it because they saw this as an opportunity to shut down a bloody dictatorship that had been in power for almost four decades, while other Iranians living in the United States and elsewhere have thought of seeing this as more of a fearful moment because of the uncertainty the foreign intervention can engender in the region,” she said.
Mehrez then discussed how religious identity characterized reactions to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s death across regions.
“Going beyond Iraq, Shia populations and supporters of Hezbollah, supporters of the groups in Yemen have also been mourning the death of the supreme leader in Iran,” she said.
Mehrez ended her discussion by summarizing public opinion polls about American and Israeli policy from the Arab Opinion Index.
“Most of the Arab public view Israeli and American policies as the two biggest threats to the region, with 84% agreeing that Israeli policies threaten the security and stability of the Arab region, and then 77% agree that it’s the United States that has threatened the stability and security of the region,” she said.
Kaplow began his talk by addressing the United States’ justification for war, which mostly draws from the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
“Israel was engaged in this other conflict with Hezbollah, a proxy of Iran, and really significantly degraded Hezbollah capabilities in a number of ways, including by killing a lot of Hezbollah leadership,” Kaplow said. “And once that happened, Israel kind of says to itself, and we can almost hear it, ‘Well, now Iran is weakened, right?’”
Kaplow added that Israel’s reasoning for striking Iran now is due to its weakened state, citing a rare window of opportunity.
“The United States has munitions that can effectively address hardened underground nuclear facilities, where Israel does not, and so the United States gets involved in this conflict partly because there’s a window of opportunity,” he said. “The cost of that conflict is a little bit lower right now while Iran is weakened.”
He shifted the discussion to messaging from the Trump administration.
“The goals today are to destroy Iran’s missile capabilities, its navy and its nuclear weapons ambitions and stop the country from arming militant groups,” he said. “So, that is, getting rid of the capability.”
Kaplow identified regime change as more of a secondary goal for the Trump administration.
“The track record of achieving regime change via airstrikes is — there is no track record of achieving regime change via airstrikes,” Kaplow said. “So, the prospects of this being successful, I think, are low.”
Kaplow addressed the U.S. president’s comments about having unlimited ammunition and stated that he disagrees.
“We’ve already had reports that the [United Arab Emirates] is running out of missile interceptors, that our supplies of these capabilities are running low,” he said. “We have previously argued that we can’t send them to Ukraine because they’re in short supply, but now apparently, we have an unlimited supply.”
