US-Iran education exchange plans cool over spy charges

Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (right) shakes hands with US secretary of state John Kerry in Geneva during a meeting to discuss the details of the Iran nuclear agreement. (Photo: AFP)

Just before last year’s nuclear deal with Iran, five US universities visited the country to explore renewing educational ties that flourished before the Islamic Revolution.

The group, which included representatives from Rutgers and the University of Southern California (USC), found a desire on both sides for more exchanges and concluded that US students and scholars would be warmly welcomed in Iran.

But there was a hitch — the head of the delegation, Allan Goodman, was a former US intelligence analyst. In March this year he was attacked in hardline Iranian media reports which have painted the June 2015 visit as a US attempt to build an espionage network and undermine the Iranian state.

US officials and Goodman’s employer, the Institute of International Education (IIE), say that’s not the case and that there was no US government involvement in the trip.

Nevertheless, the negative press reports have cooled efforts to rebuild educational ties in the wake of the landmark nuclear deal, two US officials said. They said the US government is now cautioning American universities against moving too fast and that the schools themselves are treading warily.

Earlier in his career, he coordinated the daily intelligence briefing President Jimmy Carter received in 1979 and 1980, a period when the Islamic Revolution toppled the Shah and dozens of US diplomats were held hostage in Tehran.

The CIA declined comment on Goodman’s intelligence past, saying it does not discuss personnel matters. The state department and Iranian foreign ministry also declined comment.

The episode highlights the political struggle between Iranians who want to work with the US and hardliners who often raise espionage accusations and fear opening up will undermine their rule.

US officials say it also illustrates the challenge of establishing even seemingly innocuous exchanges given Iranian mistrust of foreign involvement in its affairs. That mistrust dates to Britain’s exploitation of its oil, the CIA-sponsored coup that overthrew its Prime Minister, Mohammed Mossadegh, in 1953 and Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi’s subsequent brutal reign.

The official said he had expected at least one memorandum of understanding between a US and an Iranian university to have been signed by now. A senior Iranian official said it appeared that the foreign ministry had “suspended the issue”.

In March, Mashregh, a Persian language online news service allied with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, cast the delegation’s visit as a way for Washington to create a network of students to spy for the US after retuning to Iran.

It also said Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif invited the group, which included Ball State University, Pitzer College and Wayne State University.

A second senior Iranian official said Zarif “had invited the group”. The Iranian foreign ministry declined to comment.

Zarif, who received his doctorate from the University of Denver and served as Iran’s UN ambassador, was Iran’s chief negotiator in the nuclear deal, under which Tehran agreed to restrict its nuclear programme in return for relief from the US, European Union and United Nations sanctions. He was regularly lambasted during and after the nuclear talks by hardliners who accused him of crossing Iran’s “red lines” over the deal.

“It seems that the government... by welcoming the American delegation’s visit, has welcomed the American government’s plans to topple the Iranian establishment,” Mashregh said.

Iran’s ministry of science, research, and technology invited the delegation, according to IIE spokeswoman Sharon Witherell.

For current and former US officials, the criticism is an unjustified attempt to discredit Goodman, who has devoted nearly two decades to educational exchanges and, in any case, was an intelligence analyst rather than an agent.

Former US officials said Goodman was at the CIA at a time when there was little movement of analysts into operations.

Given his past professional ties to the CIA, Goodman would be “effectively disqualified from current intelligence operations” because he would be unable to establish the “cover” or pretext that would be needed, said analyst Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists.

US-Iranian educational exchanges have largely been a one-way street of Iranian students who pay their own way and provide steady revenue to universities coming to the US.

USC vice president Anthony Bailey, who went on the June 2015 trip, said his college would be “very cautious” and hoped ties would improve, allowing for deeper engagement.