On March 6, students from the Iranian Graduate Student Organization gathered on the Central Green to protest the Iranian regime and mourn lost loved ones.

Demonstrators waved Lion and Sun flags — Iran’s official flag until the 1979 revolution — which have come to symbolize opposition to the current regime and solidarity amongst the Iranian diaspora. 

Attendees also held posters that read, “Thank you President Trump!” praising the administration’s strikes against Iran.

“I just hope that this war leads to the fall of the Islamic Republic regime,” the event organizer said, who remained anonymous, citing risks to his family in Iran.

Faculty members have also been engaged with the topic.

A March 11 panel hosted by the university’s political science and international relations department brought together Wayne Batchis, Daniel Green, Stuart Kaufman, Mahtab Shafiei and Muqtedar Khan, all professors in the department, to provide historical and geopolitical insight into the conflict.

One of the panel’s main points of discussion revolved around why the war was happening.

Shafiei, whose work centers around international law and political conflict resolution, noted that breakdowns in negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program were a key driver of the war.

“There was misperception and lack of information between Iran and the U.S.,” said Shafiei. “Iran and the U.S. saw no acceptable middle ground, and this dynamic made bargaining very difficult.”

Kaufman, a scholar of ethnic conflict and U.S. national security strategy, dissented against the argument that because Iran might have initiated hostilities in the future, the war was justifiable.

“Preventative war is aggressive war and it’s always, always wrong,” Kaufman said. “But Trump’s real motive is not to protect the innocent, it’s his own ego.”

Backed by a slideshow composed of news headlines and AI-generated cartoons, Khan, who studies comparative politics, argued that the war was “Israel first” and designed to expand Israel’s influence in the region at America’s expense.

“We don’t have $30 billion to extend the Obama Care subsidy, but we are spending a billion dollars a day on this war,” said Khan. “If we fight for 31 days, then we would have spent more money on this war to make Israel the hegemon of the Middle East.”

That is the purpose of this war.”

Panelists also questioned whether the war was morally and legally justifiable. 

Batchis, who specializes in constitutional law, argued that the war is unlawful by American legal standards. However, he explained that due to judicial and political trends, the Trump administration is immune to many legal constraints.

“We’ve arguably never had a Congress as obsequious to a president’s whims as the current Republican Congress,” Batchis said. “Neither the courts are willing to intervene. Congress is not willing, politically, to step in. This is why we have the situation we do.”

However, Green, whose expertise lies in international political theory, argued that legal norms are irrelevant.

“International law is broken about every five seconds,” Green said. “Worrying about legality and international terms is probably going to prevent you from seeing other things that are important.”

Kaufman argued that in addition to the war being illegal, its objectives, morality and strategy were also wrong.

Khan agreed. He asserted that Israel, aided by the U.S. and other western countries, had committed a genocide in Gaza and forfeited their right to make any argument in favor of the war on the grounds of morality. 

“Americans should simply stop f—ing talking about law, ethics, morality, et cetera,” Khan said. 

Before the panel began, Khan distributed papers to audience members that outlined his perspective on the war’s geopolitical context, which included phrases like “Iran has never attacked another country until it was attacked by Israel and the U.S.” and “Netanyahu, the butcher of Gaza has wanted to attack Iran for 30 years, he finally got his wish with Trump.”

Ethan Grandin/THE REVIEW

In terms of post-war outcomes, Green suggested the war could “ruin the regional economy and possibly the global economy,” but predicted that the regime would be gone by the end of the year — something he hopes will prove correct. 

The war’s economic impacts are already noticeable. As of Apr. 1, national average gas prices have risen to $4.06 — up from $2.98 one month before — as the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and bombing of key oil facilities have significantly hindered global supply chains.

Potential post-war futures were also discussed.

Kaufman argued that regime change in Iran would be harmful, albeit unlikely.

“The most likely outcome is what’s already happened so far: you kill Khamenei, and then you get Khamenei Jr., which means that a lot of people will die and nothing will change,” Kaufman said. “And that’s the good scenario. The bad scenario is: The government goes down, in which case, the chance is … 100% that there will be civil war.”

Green argued that the regime will only fall if the Iranian people bring it down themselves — which cannot happen while American bombing campaigns continue.

Khan stressed that the United States’ costly failures in Afghanistan and Iraq should be a warning sign for Iran.

“I don’t know why you guys are sitting here,” Khan said. “You should be on the streets protesting.” 

Following the professors’ remarks, audience members engaged in a question-and-answer session with the panelists. 

Fariba Amini, who identified herself as an Iranian-American journalist, argued that the U.S. is no longer a democracy due to Israel’s involvement in American politics.

“It’s the Israeli government that does not want to see any progress,” Amini said. “They want to disintegrate Iran.” 

She argued that every American and Israeli ought to be “ashamed of themselves” for not speaking out, a sentiment some audience members did not share.

“Just as you yourself have not been able to sway the Iranian government to do good things, there are many of us in the United States who would like different policies from our government and aren’t able to sway it,” said another audience member in response.

In one of the more heated exchanges of the event, Kassra Oskooii, an Iranian-American associate professor at the university, challenged an argument made by Khan, who had questioned whether the Iranian government was as unpopular as commonly thought during his presentation. 

“It’s ridiculous to suggest, as some have, that this Iranian regime is anything but a terrorist regime that killed 40,000 plus of its people in one week, and to suggest that this is a regime that can be reformed,” said Oskooii. “85 to 90% of Iranians want this regime gone.”

Khan retorted, arguing that extrapolating such data from within a totalitarian regime would be impossible, whereupon Oskooii pushed back, quoting a recent Gallup poll supporting his claim. The argument escalated until Kaufman verbally separated the two professors, who were shouting. 

The war continues to be a critical issue for many members of the university community. For some, the conflict will remain “the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time against the wrong enemy,” as Kaufman quoted from General Omar Bradley. But for others, hope for a new Iran can finally be felt.