College Republicans host journalist


Adelle Nazarian

The USC College Republicans hosted Breitbart.com’s Adelle Nazarian Wednesday in the Mark Taper Hall of Humanities for a discussion on the nuclear agreement the Obama administration brokered with Iran.

Jacob Ellenhorn, president of the College Republicans, helped to secure Nazarian as the guest speaker for the night’s Iran deal discussion.

“Adelle has been covering the Iran deal in depth on Breitbart.com for quite a while, and she is someone who is accessible,” he said.  “We have a lot of people in common, and I have run into her at a bunch of events.”

Nazarian is a first-generation Iranian-American and was born and raised in Livingston, New Jersey. She currently resides in Los Angeles where she works as a journalist specializing in politics and national security, specifically focusing on China and Iran.

To begin the discussion, Nazarian addressed the Iran deal’s controversial nature. Though she acknowledged the deal’s Democratic origins, she said discussions about it have crossed party lines.

“Both parties have actually found positives and negatives of the deal,” she said. “The way I see it, if it was a Republican-backed deal I have a feeling Democrats would have a lot of opposition to it as well.”

Nazarian explained the details of the Iran Deal to the club, addressing both Republican and Democratic opinion. She then took questions from the audience. Nazarian’s hesitance toward the deal was evident in her responses.

“What should have happened, in my opinion, after speaking to a lot of senators and congressional representatives, is that there should have been a more detailed deal negotiated because there were too many concessions made to Iran,” she said.

Nazarian said she advocates taking a stronger approach toward Iran. However, she does not feel that war has to be the solution. In fact, despite her reservations, she does see some positive aspects of the agreement.

“The only positive of this deal is that for a little bit of time, maybe for a few years, the Iranian people will have gotten back to zero again and will possibly get a little bit of money,” she said.

As a woman of Iranian descent, Nazarian has unique insight into life in the country. She said that based on her experience, the true threat to American security is the regime and believes that the Iranian people would benefit from revolution. She emphasized that the Iranian nation cannot be stereotyped based on the regime alone.

“The Iranian regime is a very different entity than the population,” Nazarian said. “The people of Iran are actually pro-West and pro-Western democracy. They love America, generally speaking, and they are very much against the regime.”

Though not in support of the deal, Nazarian said the future of U.S.-Iranian relations is difficult to anticipate.

“Right now, we are at a point where we’re living for today. Tomorrow will be determined by unpredictable actions on the world stage. So, we’ll see what happens next,” Nazarian said.