Controversial Princeton prof with Iran ties steps down amid criticism from dissidents, senators

A controversial Princeton professor with strong ties to the Iranian regime has quietly stepped down from the Ivy League school, following a campaign from dissidents to remove him.

Seyed Hossein Mousavian, a Middle East security and nuclear policy specialist, retired from his position after 15 years as the head of the school’s Program on Science and Global Security on June 1, according to an announcement listing retiring employees on Princeton’s website.

The professor is controversial for being heavily involved in Iran’s chemical and nuclear programs beginning in 2004, long before the country was known to have been building up its nuclear arsenal, according to Swiss journalist Bruno Schirra.

The move comes amid the news Princeton could lose more than $200 million in grants from the Trump administration for not tackling antisemitism on campus, The Post has learned.

Iranian opposition activists as well as Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz, a Princeton alumnus, had long urged the school to fire Mousavian.

“It’s a victory, but one has to wonder if he’s staying behind the scenes somehow,” said Lawdan Bazargan, a former political prisoner in Iran, a human rights activist and member of the US-based Alliance Against Islamic Regime of Iran Apologists.

The group has waged a two-year campaign to get the university to ditch Mousavian.

“We exposed the truth,” the group said in a press release last week. “Mousavian is not a neutral scholar but a former ambassador of the [Islamic Republic of Iran] who defended the fatwas to kill author Salman Rushdie.

Shirin Ebadi, a former Iranian judge who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003, has also previously accused Mousavian of supporting the fatwa.

Before being hired by Princeton in 2009, Mousavian had also worked as a diplomat and editor of the Tehran Times, the English-language newspaper which is a mouthpiece for the regime.

Mousavian was also Iran’s ambassador to Germany in 1992 when four dissidents were murdered in the back of a restaurant in Berlin.

The group of dissidents which campaigned to get him fired from Princeton has previously alleged when Mousavian was ambassador to Germany, 23 Iranians were killed in Europe for being enemies of the mullahs.

In 1997, a German court concluded that the Iranian leadership, including the foreign ministry, masterminded the murders and that the headquarters for plotting them was the Iranian embassy, but did not name Mousavian.

During the trial, German newspaper Tagesspiegel reported a former Iranian spy, Abolghasem Mesbahi, said under oath, “Mousavian was involved in most of the crimes that took place in Europe.

“Specifically, in Germany, it concerns the crimes that were committed against Iranian opposition members.”

Following the trial Mousavian was called back to Tehran.

Mousavian, whose Princeton email address is still active and who is still prominently featured on the school’s website, did not return a request for comment Tuesday.

He wrote of his retirement on Twitter: “After 15 years of service at Princeton University, I retired at my own request at the end of May 2025.

“I am deeply grateful to the university officials for their support and especially for their commitment to freedom of expression.”

The retirement coincides with the imminent publication of a 2004 interview with Mousavian by Schirra.

The interview, which is now being published by the Middle East Research Institute, a US-based nonprofit that studies extremism, suggests Iran’s nuclear program was secretly active for decades before Western intelligence sources warned of its existence.

“After Iraq’s attack [in 1980], we announced our defensive chemical and nuclear programs,” said Mousavian in the interview, who was then deputy of Iran’s National Security Council.

In April, Cruz urged the school to fire Mousavian, saying: “His presence at Princeton makes students feel justifiably afraid for their safety.”