Iranian Influence in the UK: Audit and Analysis

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Iranian Influence in the UK: Audit and Analysis

10th June 2021 @ 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm

The Islamic Republic of Iran has designs on Britain. Whilst Iranian actions in the Middle East have long been critically examined, too little attention has been given towards Iran’s influence in this country. This event introduces a detailed report by Dr Paul Stott which considers the following areas – politics, religion, the media, culture, diaspora communities, education and business. It also examines examples of the soft power Iran seems to possess within sections of our political landscape, where sympathy for the Iranian Revolution or policy outcomes favourable to Iran have sometimes been seen.

The Islamic Republic has invested considerable effort in developing connections with institutions in the UK. But it has also combined open outreach work with the type of online disinformation campaigns associated with the Russian state. These have primarily been targeted at promoting the cause of Scottish independence, and represent direct interference in the constitutional integrity of the United Kingdom.

The need to see Iran as a hostile player in our domestic politics is pressing, not least as its strategy in this country is conducted on a backdrop whereby Tehran has arrested and held dual national British-Iranians to use as bargaining chips in its disputes with the West.

The Henry Jackson Society is delighted to be joined by the Rt. Hon Theresa Villiers MP, Professor Shaul Chorev, Simone Rodan-Benzaquen and Jonathan Spyer for this important event.

 

Rear Admiral, Professor Shaul Chorev, the former Head of the Israel Atomic Energy Commission and former Deputy Chief of Naval Operations is the Director of the Ezri Center for Iran and Gulf States Research, Maritime Policy & Strategy Research Center, University of Haifa. As a professor in the International Relations division of the School of Political Science, he is also the Director of the Reuven Chaikin Chair for Geostrategy and head of the M.A. program in National Security and Maritime Strategy in University Of Haifa. Retired Israeli Navy Rear Admiral Chorev has also held numerous senior positions, including: Assistant to Israel’s Minister of Defense for Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Defense; Commanding Officer of the Haifa Naval Base; and Commanding Officer of an Israeli Naval Flotilla. Prof Chorev lectures on maritime strategy and Israel defence policy, international security, arms control technology transfer, and innovation system in the defence laboratories.

 

Simone Rodan-Benzaquen is Director of AJC Europe, in which she oversees AJC’s offices in Berlin, Brussels, Paris, Prague, Rome, Sofia and Central Europe. Prior to coming to AJC, she served as an adviser to Francois Zimeray, then-Ambassador for Human Rights in the French Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs. She was the founding General Secretary of the Brussels- and Paris-based Medbridge Strategy Center, an organization that seeks to strengthen ties between leaders of political and civil society in Europe and democratic voices in the Middle East. She was a cofounder and Vice President of SOS Darfur, co-chaired by the French intellectual Bernard-Henri Lévy. Rodan-Benzaquen regularly appears in European and U.S. media and writes regularly for The Huffington Post’s French and U.S. editions, Le Figaro, Le Monde, Libération, and other outlets.

 

Jonathan Spyer is a journalist, author and Middle East analyst. He is the founder and Executive Director of the Middle East Center for Reporting and Analysis, and a freelance security analyst for Jane’s Information Group. Spyer writes the ‘Behind the Lines’ column at the Jerusalem Post, and holds research fellowships at the Middle East Forum and the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security. He holds an M.A. from the University of London and a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics. Spyer is the author of ‘Days of the Fall: A Reporter’s Journey in the Syria and Iraq Wars’ (2017), which is a record of his extensive field reporting in Syria and Iraq in the period 2012-2017, and ‘The Transforming Fire: The Rise of the Israel-Islamist Conflict’ (2011), which focuses on the strategic contest between Israel and political Islam in the Middle East.

 

Dr Paul Stott is an Associate Fellow in the Centre on Radicalisation and Terrorism at the Henry Jackson Society. An experienced academic, he received an MSc in Terrorism Studies (Distinction) from the University of East London in 2007, and his PhD in 2015 from the University of East Anglia for the research “British Jihadism: The Detail and the Denial”. He is a frequent commentator in both the British and international media on terrorism, the Middle East, security and the political fringe. 

 

The Rt. Hon Theresa Villiers is Member of Parliament for Chipping Barnet. Theresa was Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs from 2019 to 2020. She was also Secretary of State for Northern Ireland from 2012 until 2016 and served as Minister of State for Transport from 2010 until 2012. She also served as an MEP for the London constituency from 1999 to 2005, during which she held the position of Deputy Leader of the Conservatives in the European Parliament. Prior to her career in politics, Theresa worked as a barrister and a lecturer at King’s College London. She holds law degrees from the University of Bristol and Jesus College, Oxford.

 

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Details

Date:
10th June 2021
Time:
3:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Website:
https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_QHQn0-gkRa2CxKsSGTTDgQ

Venue

Online

Organiser

Henry Jackson Society
Phone
+44 (0) 20 7340 4520
Email
rsvp@henryjacksonsociety.org

Other

SPEAKER
Prof Shaul Chorev, Simone Rodan-Benzaquen, Jonathan Spyer, Dr Paul Stott, Rt Hon Theresa Villiers MP

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