How to Co-opt American Education without Really Trying

The American Institute of Iranian Studies (AIIrS) is an organization with the stated goal to “represent American institutions of higher education and research in the field of Iranian Studies.” It has an impressive list of affiliates, such as UCLA, NYU, Yale, Princeton, Harvard, and the Smithsonian Institution, among many other universities and museums. It is a member of the Council of American Overseas Research Centers (CAORC), an umbrella organization focused on sending students to countries as far away as Italy in southern Europe and Bangladesh in South Asia.

AIIrS is also intertwined with a group that has connections to the upper echelons of the Iranian regime, which the United States designates as a state sponsor of terrorism. Here are some simple facts concerning AIIrS: