A former Iranian government official, who now works for Princeton University, boasted in an interview about how his government’s death threats against a former Trump Administration official left the man’s family in fear for their lives.
According to the Washington Free Beacon, Hussein Mousavian previously served as a member of Iran’s nuclear negotiating team before he became a Middle East security and nuclear policy specialist at Princeton. In the interview, Mousavian did not hide his enthusiasm about the death threats against Brian Hook, the man who served as President Donald Trump’s special envoy to Iran.
“I went to America and an American told me that Brian Hook’s wife can’t sleep, she cries and trembles, she told Brian, ‘They’ll kill you,’ since Hook was a partner in the death of Haj Qassem [Soleimani],” Mousavian recalled. “That’s how much they were trembling.” Mousavian made his remarks in a documentary called “72 Hours,” which was produced by a company with ties to the IRGC.
Mousavian was referencing the United States government’s drone strike in January of 2020 which killed Qasem Soleimani, who served as the Commander of the Quds Force, a branch of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) which specializes in covert warfare, intelligence-gathering, and unconventional warfare tactics, including terrorist acts. Soleimani was widely viewed as the right-hand man of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and his death proved a setback for Iran, as well as damaging to the morale of the Islamic nation.
Mousavian has worked for Princeton since 2009, while still serving in various roles in the Iranian government, and thus frequently travels between Iran and the United States. As such, his employment has drawn criticism from national security experts due to his dual loyalties and radical rhetoric.
“It’s simply dangerous for any university to employ Mousavian,” said Alireza Nader of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, “as he has directly celebrated death threats against Brian Hook and has been implicated in the death of Iranian dissidents in the 1990s.” The anti-Iran group United Against a Nuclear Iran publicly called on Princeton’s president Christopher Eisgruber to fire Mousavian “from any association or affiliation with Princeton without delay.”