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The US is committed to preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said at a press briefing on Thursday.

Earlier this week, in an interview with Al Jazeera, Kamal Kharrazi, an advisor to Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, warned that "if [Israel dares] to strike Iran's nuclear facilities, [Iran’s] level of deterrence will change."

"As the President and Secretary have made clear, the United States will ensure one way or another that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon. We continue to use a variety of weapons – or sorry – a variety of tools in pursuit of that goal and all options remain on the table," Miller said in response.

Despite the warning from Kharrazi and Iran’s repeated noncompliance on its nuclear program, Miller acknowledged that diplomacy remains the preferred route for achieving a sustainable resolution.

The spokesperson did point out that diplomatic efforts are currently hindered due to Iran's recent escalatory actions and its lack of cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

In recent months, a number of officials close to the Supreme Leader have threatened that the Islamic Republic has the capability to build an atomic bomb.

“We have no decision to build a nuclear bomb but should Iran's existence be threatened, there will be no choice but to change our military doctrine,” Kharrazi said, who previously served as Iran’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and currently leads the Strategic Council of Foreign Relations.

The statement comes shortly after the visit of Rafael Grossi, the director-general of the UN nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, to Tehran.

Grossi reported that there was “no timeframe or deadline” for Iran to resolve its nuclear issues, but he emphasized the expectation for Iran to take swift action.

The university has also liaised with IRGC-connected diplomats for student exchange programs, only to see two of its graduate students detained or kidnapped by the IRGC and its allied armed groups in Iraq.

With its second student still missing, Princeton’s experience is a “cautionary tale of how American institutions can be ensnared in the internal politics of Tehran and Washington and become pawns in those battles,” the report’s author, Jay Solomon, writes. “[The] Congress is now formally probing the school’s ties to Iranian regime officials.”

The report, published Thursday under the headline “How Princeton got burned by its outreach to Iran,” is based on original investigation and makes use of a cache of Iranian foreign ministry emails that were obtained by Iran International and used in two scoops about an Iranian influence network in the US.

Some familiar names from previous reports appear in the new one: Mostafa Zahrani, a senior Iranian foreign ministry diplomat with strong ties to IRGC, and Ariane Tabatabaei, currently at Pentagon, whose close and extensive ties with the regime have raised many eyebrows, and led to calls for revocation of her security clearance –as has happened with her mentor, Robert Malley, who until a year ago was Joe Biden’s Iran envoy.

Once more, Tabatabaei seems to have been at the heart of Iran’s soft war: this time initiating the ‘outreach’.

“I wanted to introduce you to a friend who is in Princeton, and you will see him in Vienna in three weeks,” Tabatabai wrote in a 2014 email, attempting to connect Kevan Harris, the then associate director of the University's Iran Centre to Mostafa Zahrani, an Iranian diplomat with IRGC ties. “[Kevan Harris] is interested in sharing with you a plan to send Iranian students to Princeton and to send American students to Iran.”

The emails obtained by Iran International show that Harris then “arranged to see Zahrani in Austria two weeks later on the sidelines of the nuclear negotiations that were taking place between Iran, the US, and other global powers there.” Early 2015, Princeton picked its first candidate for its nascent Iran program: the Chinese-American student Wang Xiyue.

“Wang was hesitant about going to Tehran,” according to Semafor. “He also raised with Princeton his concerns about security.” Harris told him it would be fine. “It’s a good time to go [to Iran] — looks like they are in a good mood over there.” Six months later, Wang was arrested. He spent more than three years in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, including in solitary confinement. He was released in a prisoner swap in 2019.

But Princeton seems to have ignored the lessons of Wang’s plight. In March 2023, a second Princeton graduate student, Elizabeth Tsurkov, was abducted by an Iranian-affiliated militia from a cafe in Baghdad. She hasn’t been seen since last November. “Both the US and Israeli governments blame Iranian-backed militia Kataib Hezbollah (KH) for the abduction.”

Elizabeth’s sister, Emma Tsurkov, has been vocal against Princeton’s response –which denied it approved Elizabeth’s travel to Iraq, implying that their student had “gone rogue.” It took the University more than six months to publicly take responsibility “for Elizabeth’s research and travel to Iraq.” Shortly after, in November 2023, KH released a video in which Elizabeth claimed, “she was both an operative for the CIA and Mossad.”

The report in Semafor also addresses the (very much ongoing) controversy surrounding Hossein Mousavian, a top regime diplomat and former nuclear negotiator, who has been at Princeton since 2009. “He fled Tehran that year after being charged with espionage”, but once in the safety of the US, he continued to promote the regime’s talking points and its nuclear positions. The emails obtained by Iran International and reviewed by Semafor shows that Mousavian would consult Zahrani and then-Foreign Minister Javad Zarif to ensure his pieces were on message.

There was very little doubt at this point that Princeton enjoyed “strong ties to the upper echelons of the Islamic Republic’s leadership,” Semafor quotes Wang. Even one of Wang’s advisers at Princeton’s Iran center, Mona Rahmani, had close ties to the regime in Tehran. “Her father ran Tehran’s interest section in Washington.” Wang says Rahmani “declined” to help him when he was thrown into jail in Tehran. Mousavian suggested it would be “counterproductive” to appeal to his contacts. And Princeton advised his wife to keep quiet and “not publicly criticize the Iranian government.”

“Simply put, after encouraging and convincing Mr. Wang to go to Iran, Princeton chose to put their reputation and political interest ahead of Mr. Wang’s personal safety,” reads the lawsuit that Wang filed against his former school in 2021. Princeton has always denied the charge of “negligence”. Last September, the two parties settled out of court with the school giving Wang an undisclosed amount.

Of all those named in the Semafor story, the only character still in Princeton –and almost entirely unaffected by all this– is Mousavian. The school still supports him and defends the decision to hire him in 2009, citing his role “in helping to promote the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, and his efforts to reduce tensions between Washington and Tehran that some Western officials worry could expand into an all-out war,” according to Semafor.

But some in the Congress have raised concerns about his continued presence in the US, with the House Committee on Education and the Workforce formally probing his employment: “Mousavian’s position...raises significant concerns about the influence of foreign hostile regimes on American institutions,” the committee wrote to Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber last November.

This has partly been a result of a grassroot campaign by Iranian-American activists who are pressuring Princeton to sever ties with Mousavian. Their campaign got a boost in March when the National Association of Scholars (NAAS) joined their chorus to get Mousavian dismissed. “His position threatens US national security and cedes academia’s integrity to a hostile regime linked to terrorism and human rights abuses,” the NAAS statement read.

Princeton has also hosted Robert Malley, the Biden administration’s suspended special Iran envoy, as a guest lecturer for the 2023 fall semester–months after his security clearance was revoked. Malley is currently being investigated by the FBI for the possible mishandling of classified information.

“If they dare to strike Iran's nuclear facilities, our level of deterrence will change. We have experienced deterrence at the conventional level so far. If they intend to strike Iran's nuclear capabilities, naturally, it could lead to a change in Iran's nuclear doctrine,” Kamal Kharrazi said.

He added that Iran has so far refrained from developing nuclear weapons, “But if Iran's existence is threatened, we are forced to change our nuclear doctrine. Recently, military officials also stated that if Israel intends to attack nuclear facilities, reconsidering Iran's nuclear doctrine and policies, and deviating from past declarations, is possible and conceivable.”
Ali-Akbar Salehi, who was foreign minister more than a decade ago and is still a key foreign policy voice in the Iranian government, also said last month that Iran has everything it needed to build a nuclear bomb, as tensions rose with Israel amid the Gaza war.

In a televised interview in April, Salehi, was asked if Iran has achieved the capability of developing a nuclear bomb. Avoiding a direct answer he stated, "We have [crossed] all the thresholds of nuclear science and technology.”

It is believed that Israel conducted two spectacular sabotage operations in 2020 and 2021 against Iran’s large nuclear facility in Natanz, located in the center of the country.

Tehran has always insisted that its nuclear program is peaceful, and it does not seek to develop nuclear weapons. However, its actions since late 2020 point to a trajectory of escalating its nuclear threat by enriching a substantial amount of uranium to 60-percent purity, which has no civilian use.

Kharrazi's new statements are clearly designed to be a deterrence to any Israeli plans to attack its nuclear facilities. Although he also threatened a change of doctrine if Iran’s existence is threatened, any Israeli attack will most likely be aimed at valuable strategic targets, not at obliterating Iran. It is possible that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s advisor was referring to possible Israeli threats against the regime and its leaders, not the existence of Iran as a country.

Iran is seen as the main military backer of the Islamist Hamas and is suspected of having assisted the planning of the October 7 attack on Israeli civilians that killed more than one thousand people. Since then, Tehran has relentlessly supported Hamas, and has encouraged its Houthi military proxies to attack commercial shipping in the Red Sea to force Israel to back down.

Tensions led to a direct confrontation when on April 13 Iran launched more than 300 drones and missiles at Israel, most of which were shot down by Israeli air defenses and the US, British and Jordanian air forces. Kharrazi expressed his pride on Thursday saying that the myth of Israeli deterrence was shattered both on October 7 and in April.

On April 18, a senior IRGC commander had also warned that Tehran could change its nuclear policies if Israel continues to threaten to attack Iran’s nuclear sites, tacitly suggesting no cooperation with world bodies and building a nuclear bomb.

“If the fake Zionist regime wants to use the threat of attacking nuclear sites to put pressure on Iran, it is possible and conceivable for the Islamic Republic to revise its nuclear doctrine and policies, and deviate from its past declared considerations,” said Ahmad Haghtalab, who oversees the security of Iran’s nuclear sites.

On Wednesday, the House of Commons adopted an unopposed motion branding the IRGC as a terrorist organization and expelling approximately 700 Iranian agents operating in Canada. The vote was in response to a report prepared by a House committee and did not constitute a binding obligation on the government.

Canada-based Iranian dissident Hamed Esmaeilion wrote on X on Wednesday: “The time has come for the Canadian government to finally put this motion to action and call the IRGC what it deserves to be called."

Esmaeilion is a member of the Association of Families of Flight PS752 Victims. The group supports relatives of the 176 passengers who were killed when the Kyiv-bound flight was brought down by two IRGC air-defense missiles on January 8, 2020, as it took off from Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport. Among those who died were 55 Canadian citizens and 30 permanent residents.

Another prominent opposition activist, Masih Alinejad, asked Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau which side of history he would choose in a tweet on X, "The people or the terrorists?"

"Millions of Iranians are counting on you to do the right thing and stand on the right side of history," Alinejad tweeted on Wednesday.

"The Revolutionary Guards of the Islamic Republic are like a dangerous virus, ready to spread across the globe unless we stop them. If you don’t take a stand against terrorism, it won’t just affect Iranians, but people worldwide will suffer the consequences", she added.

The call to brand the IRGC a terrorist group is only the latest attempt in Canada, stretching back to at least 2012. The mass drone and missile attack by Iran on Israel last month has amplified such calls among Canadian parliamentarians.

Unbeknownst to Swedish authorities, United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) says the IRGC has full access “to all collaborative work product between Iranian universities and their international academic partners”.

The partnerships in question involve at least eight Swedish universities – among them prestigious institutions like Lund University and Uppsala University.

"It is a significant national security issue, and Swedish universities should immediately sever any partnerships with Iranian universities given the risks of such collaboration, which may appear benign on the surface but which can be misused by the IRGC and security institutions in the Islamic Republic," UANI Policy Director Jason Brodsky told Iran International English.

In a letter alerting the Swedish government, UANI CEO Mark Wallace warned the country’s Education Minister that “any collaboration with an Iranian university will support the IRGC and other armed regime elements to further the Islamic Republic’s military program and the IRGC’s nefarious hard and soft power capabilities.”

The IRGC, the country’s paramilitary force, is subject to EU sanctions, and is a US-designated terrorist entity.

Letters outlining the NGO’s findings were signed by Wallace and Alireza Akhondi, a Swedish politician representing the Center Party, and were sent to the universities in question.

“Members of Parliament have summoned the Swedish education minister for questioning,” Brodsky said, adding that Swedish policymakers are taking UANI's investigation seriously.

Alongside the European Jewish Association, Europe Israel Public Affairs the UANI outlined its findings at the Swedish Parliament on Tuesday.

How the IRGC Exploits University Collaborations

Sweden, however, is not the only NATO member state, whose academic institutions have reportedly been targeted by the IRGC.

Last year, the UANI revealed that several top German universities partnered with an Iranian university linked to IRGC and Hezbollah, known for backing terrorist attacks on Israel.

Findings by the Jewish Chronicle in 2023, showed that scientists at 11 British universities helped the Iranian regime develop technology that can be used in its drone programme and fighter jets.

UANI's findings suggest that a strategic agreement was implemented in February 2021 between the IRGC and Iranian universities, exposing any collaborating academic institution to vulnerability.

The accord was implemented by the country’s Supreme Council for Cultural Revolution (SCCR) – overseen and led by the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The body, which sets Iran’s policies on cultural and educational matters, including the mandated hijab, faces several international EU and UK sanctions for gross human rights violations.

The SCCR’s accord mandates the transfer of all research and academic materials' intellectual property and rights to the IRGC and other regime entities – and is reportedly enforced across all Iranian universities.

Called the "Comprehensive Act on Science and Technology in the Defense and Security Field of the Islamic Republic of Iran," its aim is to acquire defense and security sciences and technologies.

UANI says that the agreement specifies that research obtained from universities is to be used for “hostility with enemies in the path of achieving the scientific defense goals of the Islamic Revolution” – and that it may be used against Sweden.

“Given the recently obtained evidence revealed by UANI’s investigation, any partnership with an Iranian university directly benefits the IRGC and other armed elements of the Iranian regime, posing a significant threat of espionage and exploitation,” the UANI CEO said.

The academic disciplines in which the Swedish universities collaborate with Iranian counterparts, the UANI said, align precisely with the IRGC's primary focuses for defense and security, as outlined in the strategic agreement.

These areas include automated and unmanned equipment (drones), aerospace propulsion systems, artificial intelligence, advanced warfare software and military science and technology, advanced electronics, energy, and cyber electronics.

Student exchanges organized under these partnerships also raise concerns about potential exploitation by the IRGC and other regime entities for malign purposes, the UANI found.

UANI says the universities involved in these collaborations are Malmo University, University of Boras, Lund University, Lulea University of Technology, Mid Sweden University, Uppsala University, Linnaeus University, and Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.