Georgetown Gives Pro-Iran Apologists The Stage In New Lecture Series

Georgetown University is giving the stage to a slate of scholars and commentators whom critics accuse of advancing views favorable to the Islamic Iranian regime.

The university’s Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding is hosting a four-part Iran lecture series this fall featuring four speakers who will address authoritarianism in Iran, the country’s nuclear program, its grand strategy and U.S.-Iran relations, and the struggle for democracy.

The entire lineup has drawn criticism over the speakers’ ties to the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), an Iranian-American advocacy organization that has repeatedly pushed for diplomacy and accommodation with Tehran and opposed efforts to increase pressure on the Islamic Republic.

The organization was co-founded by Trita Parsi, who is scheduled to deliver Georgetown’s lecture on Iran’s “grand strategy” and U.S.-Iran relations.

Parsi has previously sued a journalist who accused him of advancing Tehran’s interests and corresponded extensively with senior Iranian officials, leading to the State Department reviewing his immigration status.

The series comes as the U.S.-Iran war enters its seventh month and as the Trump administration intensifies scrutiny of foreign nationals accused of ties to the Iranian regime.

Critics say Georgetown has effectively assembled a pro-Iran series from a single policy ecosystem while leaving out Iranian dissidents and other voices opposed to NIAC’s approach.

“Universities are supposed to be beacons of open inquiry and intellectual freedom,” Lawdan Bazargan, founder of Alliance Against Islamic Regime of Iran Apologists (AAIRIA), told The Daily Wire. “When they repeatedly amplify one narrow set of voices while excluding Iranians who challenge those narratives, they risk becoming vehicles for propaganda rather than places of genuine debate.”

“That should concern everyone, especially when these institutions are educating America’s future policymakers,” Bazargan added.

In a letter addressed to Georgetown President Eduardo M. Peñalver, AAIRIA stresses that it is not calling for the speakers to be silenced. Instead, the group argues that Georgetown’s responsibility is to have a “robust debate.”

AAIRIA pointed out that every announced speaker has a documented intersection with NIAC or NIAC-sponsored advocacy and that the series does not include former political prisoners, victims’ families, human-rights investigators, dissidents, or national-security experts who challenge the positions associated with the NIAC policy network.

Parsi’s selection has attracted particular attention because of his long history as one of the most prominent advocates for diplomatic engagement with Tehran.

“Trita Parsi sued a journalist for calling him part of Tehran’s lobby, lost, and was sanctioned by a federal court for hiding the very documents that would have shown what he was,” Mark Goldfeder, CEO of the National Jewish Advocacy Center, told The Daily Wire. “That is the man Georgetown chose to explain Iran to its students.”

In 2008, Parsi and NIAC sued Iranian-American journalist Seid Hassan Daioleslam for defamation after he accused them of secretly advancing the interests of the Iranian regime. A federal court ultimately ruled in Daioleslam’s favor and sanctioned Parsi and NIAC over their handling of discovery. The D.C. Circuit later upheld most of those sanctions, describing the plaintiffs’ conduct as a “disturbing pattern of delay and intransigence.”

The litigation also brought Parsi’s correspondence with Javad Zarif, then Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, into public view. According to The Free Press, emails showed Parsi discussing with Zarif ways for the Iranian diplomat to meet with American lawmakers and participate in U.S.-based policy conferences.

“To be clear, universities may host whomever they like, and Parsi is free to speak. But when a school building a series on a hostile regime reaches first for the person a federal court caught concealing his ties to it, that is a curatorial decision, and the curators own it,” Goldfeder said.

Parsi gained significant access to the Obama White House as the administration pursued the Iran nuclear agreement. White House visitor logs show that Parsi visited the White House 33 times between 2013 and 2016, according to The Free Press. Parsi has also described himself as an “informal” adviser on the nuclear talks.

Parsi’s immigration status also came under scrutiny this year. The Free Press reported in June that the State Department was investigating Parsi and could seek to revoke his green card and deport him, citing U.S. officials and documents. But the State Department told The Daily Wire that the report was not accurate.

“The State Department has no plans to revoke the green card of Mr. Parsi at this time,” a State Department official said. “However, no foreign national is guaranteed a right to be in our country, and this Department will unapologetically terminate the legal status of any foreign national who participates in activities that undermine America’s national security.”

Parsi was born in Iran, grew up in Sweden, has lived in the United States for more than 25 years, and holds a green card.

Parsi is now the co-founder and executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, which has advocated reducing the U.S. military footprint overseas and shifting American foreign policy toward diplomacy and military restraint, according to The Free Press.

The institute has also sought to build support for that approach across the political spectrum by reaching out to right-wing figures with more isolationist foreign policies. In 2024, then-Sen. J.D. Vance delivered a major foreign-policy address at a conference co-hosted by Quincy and The American Conservative. Parsi sat in the front row, according to The Free Press.

Parsi is not the only speaker whose record has drawn scrutiny.

Narges Bajoghli, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, is scheduled to speak on “Authoritarian Resilience and Politics in Iran.” Bajoghli appeared at a 2018 NIAC Capitol Hill briefing on the Iranian protests and U.S. policy. NIAC has also published her support for returning to the Iran nuclear deal and has identified her among experts backing renewed diplomacy with Tehran, according to AAIRIA.

Sina Azodi, a lecturer and international affairs scholar at George Washington University, is scheduled to address “The U.S., Iran, and the Nuclear Question.” Georgetown’s event description says he will discuss the origins and trajectory of Iran’s nuclear program and what a future diplomatic agreement could look like after the 2026 war. NIAC’s April 2024 report states that, during its advocacy activity in Washington, it “gathered experts” including Azodi to discuss a ceasefire and preventing a broader war involving Iran.

The final speaker, Ali Kadivar, is scheduled to discuss the struggle for democracy in Iran. Kadivar, a Boston College professor, a 2018 political advertisement paid for by NIAC that called for an end to U.S. efforts to destabilize Iran, adherence to the JCPOA, and economic relief for Iranians.

“Every speaker Georgetown selected for this Iran series has a documented connection to NIAC,” Bazargan said. “I have no doubt that NIAC has served the interests and narratives of the Islamic Republic.”

The criticism also extends to Nader Hashemi, director of Georgetown’s Alwaleed Center, which is hosting the series. Hashemi participated in a 2011 NIAC conference on Iran’s human-rights crisis, later signed a 2020 letter defending NIAC, and participated in NIAC’s 2024 “Diplomacy Is Not a Dirty Word” program on U.S.-Iran policy.

“The Alwaleed Center has long given an academic veneer to apologetics for political Islam and America’s adversaries, so Trita Parsi is an almost comically on-brand choice,” Eitan Fischberger, a Middle East researcher who first made note of the series, told The Daily Wire. “The Ayatollah himself couldn’t have picked a more fitting speaker.”

Bazargan also pointed to a February 2026 discussion broadcast on Iran’s state television network IRIB that, according to AAIRIA, focused on the idea of building an Iranian lobbying operation in Washington. She said participants in the discussion referred to Parsi as “our own style” and separately described NIAC as a lobby built in the United States.

In another clip, a participant explicitly says, “You went and built the lobby NIAC there,” and then describes NIAC as a humiliating failure compared with the organized Israeli and Arab lobbying operations in Washington, according to Bazargan.

“These are not Iranian dissidents discussing NIAC,” Bazargan said. “This conversation was broadcast inside Iran on the Islamic Republic’s state television.”

AAIRIA subsequently called for a federal investigation into NIAC, Parsi, and the Quincy Institute, asking that their foreign affiliations, funding, and lobbying activities be examined.

Bazargan said the IRIB discussion reinforced her concerns about the network represented by Georgetown’s lecture series.

“For years, we have watched the same small circle of figures repeat similar narratives on Iran — blaming sanctions and U.S. policy while consistently advocating accommodation with Tehran,” Bazargan said. “So when Georgetown assembles an Iran series in which every announced speaker has documented connections to NIAC or NIAC-related programming, I do not see intellectual diversity,”

“I see the same policy ecosystem connected to the Islamic Republic of Iran being given another prestigious platform while serious opposing Iranian voices are left out,” she added.

Georgetown University and Trita Parsi did not respond to requests for comment before publication.