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What Would We All Say If Iran Razed MIT Because of Military-Related Research?

The destruction of parts of two universities in Iran fits with Israel’s M.O. of crippling countries’ ability to rebuild.

Over the weekend, the U.S. and Israel bombarded two universities in Iran, the Isfahan University of Technology and the Iran University of Science and Technology in Tehran.

These are not, of course, the first attacks on civilian infrastructure in President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s illegal war on Iran; hospitals, desalination facilities, power plants, and an elementary school have all been hit.

Iranian students and educators received no warning.

Iranian students and educators received no warning.

The U.S. and Israel claimed that the attacks on the universities were justified, because they said the schools were connected to Iran’s weapons programs.

In response, Iranian authorities said on Sunday that American university facilities in the region would be considered legitimate targets, should the U.S. not condemn the strikes on Iranian educational institutions.

In a statement, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps warned “all employees, professors and students of American universities in the region to stay at least a kilometer away.”

Iranian students and educators received no such warning. Iran’s university campuses have been closed since the U.S.–Israeli war began last month; the weekend strikes nonetheless severely damaged buildings and reportedly wounded at least four staff members.

Cynical Justification

Leaving aside the fact that nothing in Trump’s war of choice against Iran is justified, the U.S. and Israel’s purported grounds for targeting Iranian universities are hollow and cynical. It is true that both universities had ties to military research. Would American and Israeli leaders consider their own equivalent institutions fair game? Of course not.

By stated U.S. and Israeli rationale, however, were Iran able to launch airstrikes on American soil, direct ties to the U.S. and Israeli military-industrial complex would make valid targets of at least the University of California, Berkeley; the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Johns Hopkins University, among dozens of other schools.

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Numerous Israeli universities, including Technion and Tel Aviv University, have research institutes dedicated to military technologies. And the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has a military base on campus for training intelligence soldiers.

Asymmetric warfare offers powerful........

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