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Jeanne Guillemin Meselson

In the News

January 7, 2020

Jeanne Guillemin, biological warfare expert and senior advisor at MIT, dies at 76

Michelle EnglishMIT News

Jeanne Guillemin was described by The New York Times as a “scientific sleuth” and the Washington Post as a “pioneering researcher” in obituaries that lauded her groundbreaking work in biological warfare — a field where men had long outnumbered their female colleagues.

 Iranians tear up a US flag during a demonstration in Tehran on January 3, 2020.

In the News

January 6, 2020

Iran drives another stake into the heart of the nuclear deal

Tim ListerCNN

Vipin Narang quoted: Vipin Narang, Associate Professor of Political Science at MIT, points out that despite Iran's announcement that it won't abide by enrichment levels and quantities set by the JCPOA, "it is still quite far from having enough enriched uranium for a bomb, let alone a functional arsenal because...of the JCPOA."

Senior Research Associate at MIT’s Security Studies Program Dr. Jim Walsh on the U.S. airstrike that killed top Iranian general Soleimani.

In the News

January 5, 2020

Iraqi parliament votes to expel US troops from country

Fox News

Senior Research Associate at MIT’s Security Studies Program Dr Jim Walsh on the US airstrike that killed top Iranian general Soleimani.

Posing for a picture with a poster of Maj Gen Qassim Suleimani in Baghdad on Saturday.Credit...Ahmad Al-Rubaye/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

In the News

January 4, 2020

Did the killing of Qassim Suleimani deter Iranian attacks, or encourage them?

Amanda TaubThe New York Times

Vipin Narang quoted: “He was a monster, no question,” said Vipin Narang, an MIT political scientist who has studied efforts to halt Iran’s nuclear program. “But there’s a consequentialist argument as well.”  Dr Narang said the deterrence argument “assumes a unitary, rational actor.” While he said that could apply to Iran, which may want to avoid war, it may not apply, say, to Hezbollah, which Iran backs in Lebanon.

The US claimed responsibility for an air raid in Baghdad that killed General Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran's elite Quds force, raising fears that oil supplies could be disrupted in the Middle East [File: Haider al-Assadee/EPA]

In the News

January 3, 2020

Oil prices surge after US attack kills senior Iran military chief

Al Jazeera

John Tirman quoted: "Certainly Iran is going to retaliate in some way - retaliations will come, as they have in the past, in what we call an asymmetrical way. They're not going to confront the US directly but they will perhaps attack Saudi tankers again, maybe Saudi oil refineries again," John Tirman told Al Jazeera. "The fact is that Iran will come back and hit US assets or the assets of US allies in the region, and they will do so repeatedly over a period of time," Tirman said.

In this March 27, 2015 file photo released by an official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader, commander of Iran’s Quds Force, Qassem Soleimani, sits in a religious ceremony at a mosque in the residence of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran, Iran. A U.S. airstrike near Baghdad’s airport on Friday Jan. 3, 2020 killed Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Quds Force. Soleimani was considered the architect of Iran’s policy in Syria. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader v

In the News

January 3, 2020

Qassem Soleimani long targeted the United States

Sean Philip CotterBoston Herald

Jim Walsh quoted: “Soleimani was a central figure in Iran — he was Iran’s military representative to the Middle East,” Jim Walsh, an expert on terrorism and the Middle East at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told the Herald. “There was sort of a cult of personality about him, and people thought of him as being talented.”

An Iranian woman covers her face with a picture of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani during a demonstration in Tehran against the killing of the top commander in a U.S. strike in Baghdad. (Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images)

In the News

January 3, 2020

Qassem Soleimani, top Iranian general, killed in US airstrike in Baghdad

Peter O'Dowd WBUR Here & Now

Peter O'Dowd speaks with security analyst Jim Walsh about the US killing of top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad, which is expected to have larger repercussions.

Jim Walsh

In the News

January 1, 2020

A look at the national security challenges facing the US in 2020

Robin YoungWBUR Here & Now

Robin Young speaks with security analyst Jim Walsh about the stalled nuclear talks with North Korea and the US embassy protests in Baghdad.

Kim Jong Un at the the 5th Plenary Meeting of the 7th Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea in Pyongyang.STR / AFP - Getty Images

In the News

January 1, 2020

North Korea signals end of nuclear-test suspension, promises 'new' weapon

Alexander SmithNBC News

Vipin Narang, a politics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who focuses on nuclear weapons, tweeted the potential to negotiate on this issue is "the door we should urgently push on."

President George W Bush

In the News

January 1, 2020

George W Bush slips in and out of town as Poodle naps

Nick WelshSanta Barbara Independent

John Tirman interview and research heavily referenced in piece about mortality rates and cost of war.

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