On Sept. 30, the Dickey Center for International Understanding hosted former Iranian ambassador to Germany Seyed Hossein Mousavian and Brookings Institution vice president Suzanne Maloney for an event titled “Israel and Iran: The Future of the Middle East.”
The hour-and-a-half-long discussion was held in the Kreindler Conference Hall as part of the Middle East Dialogues initiative — a collaboration between the Dickey Center, Middle Eastern Studies and Jewish Studies programs — and drew approximately 60 attendees.
Mousavian’s presence at Dartmouth was protested by several students and community members, who handed out flyers at the event’s entrance and accused Mousavian of being complicit in political assassinations. The protesters’ flyers referenced the 1992 murders of four Iranian dissidents, which the German courts concluded in 1997 had been ordered by Iran’s Special Affairs Committee.
Several Hanover Police Department and Security and Safety officers were present inside. Representatives did not respond to interview requests regarding the motivations for their presence. Ella Jacobs ’28, who attended the event, described the environment as “tense,” while another student present, Justin Slayen ’28, called it “frightening.”
The event was moderated by Dickey Center director Victoria Holt and included a debate and Q&A. While the event focused on current Israel-Iran tensions, the discussion had been planned prior to recent escalations between Israel and Hezbollah, Holt said during the event. Since mid-September, Israel, Iran and Hezbollah — an Iran-backed militant organization based in Lebanon — have escalated attacks against each other, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies and NPR.
In her opening remarks, Holt said the purpose of the event was to “have [a] conversation.”
“There’s no presumption of agreement in this room,” Holt said. “We’d love to find common ground, but the purpose of today is really to understand different perspectives.”
Throughout the talk, Maloney argued that the Iranian government has used recent crises in the Middle East to “advance their own influence.”
“The Iranian government is one that rules by force and extends it to extremist groups around the region as a means to assure their own relevance and influence,” Maloney said.
Mousavian, meanwhile, stressed the importance of Israel and the United States reaching peaceful negotiations, adding that if the United States could “convince the Israelis of a two-state solution,” the agreement would receive international support from “Islamic countries, all Europeans, China [and] Russia.”
“We have to respect the resolutions, international laws and regulations ... and ... have [an] immediate ceasefire, immediate withdrawal [from] Gaza and ... work for a ... two-state solution,” Mousavian said. “This is the only sustainable way in order to preserve peace and security between Israelis and Palestinians.”
Attendee Simrin Chowdhury ’28 said hearing from differing perspectives like those present on the panel could help students form their own opinions.
“The point of bringing different perspectives to campus is so that students can learn about … other points of view in order to form their own,” Chowdhury said.
Despite their different backgrounds and perspectives, both Mousavian and Maloney shared concerns over current volatility in the Middle East.
During the event, Mousavian characterized the region’s position today as “extremely tenuous.”
Maloney agreed, describing the situation as “precarious” and cautioning that it could “spiral to war” if Iran were to retaliate against Israel directly.
Maloney also expressed concern over a potential Israel-Iran war, which she said would be much different than a conflict between “a country and a militia group” — as has been the case with Israel and Hezbollah.
“A war with a militia group is very different than an interstate war between countries that, in some cases, have nuclear weapons,” Maloney said.
The day after the event, Iran launched at least 180 missiles toward Israel — some of which “landed in central and Southern Israel” — according to reporting from NPR.
During the Q&A segment of the event, Maloney discussed what she called a “hopeful trend” in response to a question about potential future diplomacy. The continued existence of the Abraham Accords and treaties designed to normalize diplomacy between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain demonstrates “there is clear and evident interest on the part of the Saudi government in normalizing with Israel and joining that same process,” she said.
“There is a desire for the region to move past these devastating conflicts,” she added. “The difficulty here is that as long as there is an incentive on the part of some governments to use [extremist] groups to advance their own influence across the region — and by some governments I mean Iran — we still find ourselves mired in these conflicts.”
In a different question, one student asked about “nuclear deterrence in the region,” to which Mousavian said Israel is the “only country with nuclear bombs” in the Middle East.
“If you really want a Middle East free of nuclear weapons, it should be the United Nations implementing policies and taking them away from Israel,” Mousavian said.
Maloney, however, defended Israel’s nuclear capability as “an important deterrent to further conflict and further threat against Israel.”
“[Israel’s] very inception prompted its invasion,” Maloney said. “We can’t ask [Israel] to give up their nuclear power. It was a non-starter even before Oct. 7.”
Several attendees expressed concern with Mousavian’s diplomatic history. At one point, Shabnam Panahi, a 38-year-old Iranian-American activist, took the microphone and held onto it even after Holt attempted to steer the conversation back to Israel and Iran.
“How do you reconcile your role with defending [the Iranian] regime with the global outcry for justice and accountability?” Panahi asked Mousavian. “[And] for its ongoing abuses and involvements in international assassination?”
Mousavian dismissed claims that he was complicit in the assassinations in his response.
“[The accusations of terrorism are] completely false,” Mousavian said. “I have been traveling to Germany since 1998, every year, at least three, four, five times. If I was implicit in terrorist activities, they would never give me a visa.”
In an interview, Holt said navigating a session in which participants and audience members have “very strong views” was difficult.
“When it becomes personalized to the speaker and not to the topic, it’s important to try and move that along,” Holt said. “Not that it’s not a substantive conversation, but it’s not the purpose of the evening and can disrupt from exactly the education we’re trying to do.”
Despite the contentious discussion, Holt and the speakers agreed on the event’s importance.
“Suzanne Maloney and I attended multiple meetings with the students and professors to explain the United States, Iran and Israel on the current conflict,” Mousavian wrote in an email statement to The Dartmouth. “I think the discussion and the event were very respectful and useful.”
Maloney did not respond to requests for comment by time of publication.
