Mehdi Khalaji

Mehdi Khalaji    (academic, cleric)
Born	Mehdī Khalajī 21 September 1973 Qom, Iran
Nationality	US (Born: Iran)
Citizenship	United States
Alma mater	Qom Seminary, Tarbiat Modarres University
Criminal charge	corruption,embezzlement
Member of	Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Interests	Middle East
Party	Democratic Party
Iranian exile writer who frequently contributed to Western Commercially-controlled media suggesting crippling sanctions and military action against Iran. He and wife main suspects in the largest financial corruption case in Iranian history.

Mehdi Khalaji is an Iranian-American writer, scholar of Islamic studies, political analyst and a former Shia cleric. He has been researching at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy since 2005, and is now a senior research fellow focusing on the politics of Iran and Shiite groups in the Middle East. He has frequently contributed to media outlets such as The Guardian, BBC, The Washington Post, and The New York Times. Khalaji is an American citizen.

In March 2019 Khalaji and his wife, Marjan Sheikholeslami Aleagha, were listed among the main suspects in the largest financial corruption case in Iranian history with a total amount of 6.7 billion euros. Khalaji and his wife are suspected that they made contracts with oil and gas company, Sepanir, and under the pretext of circumventing sanctions, used personal accounts which were used to embezzle money to United States and Canada.

Education and career

A native from Qom, the center for Shi'a scholarship in Iran, Khalaji studied Islamic theology in Qom Seminary, and Philosophy in Tarbiat Modarres University.

From 1986 to 2000, Khalaji trained in the seminaries of Qom, the traditional center of Iran's clerical establishment. There he studied theology and jurisprudence, earning a doctorate and thoroughly researched on modern intellectual and philosophical-political developments in Iran and the wider Islamic and Western worlds. In Qom, and later in Tehran, Khalaji launched a career in journalism, first serving on the editorial board of a theological journal, Naqd va Nazar, and then the daily Entekhab. In addition to his own writing, he has translated the works of the Islamic humanist scholar Muhammad Arkoun and other modernist Muslim intellectuals.

In 1993, Khalaji became a contributor to Kiyan monthly magazine, which at the time was the main voice of religious intellectuals in Iran.

Emigration

In 2000, Khalaji moved to Paris where he studied Shiite theology and exegesis in the but didn't earn any degree or certificate Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes. He also worked for BBC Persian as a political analyst on Iranian affairs, eventually becoming a broadcaster for the Prague-based Radio Farda, the Persian-language service of the U.S. government's Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. At Radio Farda, he produced news, features, and analysis on a range of Middle Eastern, Iranian, and Islamic issues.

In 2005, Mehdi Khalaji became a senior fellow at The Washington Institute, focusing on the politics of Iran and Shiite groups in the Middle East. A Shiite theologian by training, Khalaji has also served on the editorial boards of two prominent Iranian periodicals and produced for the BBC as well as the U.S. government's Persian news service. He is a frequent contributor in PolicyWatch and PeaceWatch segments submitted by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

In the reports and articles he wrote for the Washington Institute of Near Eastern Studies, Mehdi Khalji emphasized the need for sanctions and economic pressure to change the behavior of the Islamic Republic of Iran. In a joint paper with Patrick Clawson in 2012, they suggested crippling sanctions, severe political isolation, and military action against Iran as ways to change the minds of the Islamic Republic's leaders.

Three months before the conclusion of the nuclear agreement between Iran and six other powers in 2015, Mehdi Khalji, in a joint article in the New York Times, claimed that whether Iran is under the rule of the Safavid and Pahlavi kings, or under the rule of the religious people of the Islamic Republic; Its nature has always been empire and its motive is hegemonic and country conquest, and therefore he compared it with Nazi Germany.

He has participated in many panels including one in November 2006 when he appeared on a panel run by American Foreign Policy Council, titled "Understanding the Iranian Threat", along with James Woolsey, Ilan Berman, and Patrick Clawson.

Father's arrest

On January 12, 2010, Mehdi Khalaji’s father, Mohammad Taghi Khalaji, was arrested in Iran. A report from The Washington Institute for Near East Policy stated that agents of Iran's Ministry of Intelligence, conducted a violent house search, confiscating personal files, books, letters, a computer, satellite receiver and the family's passports. Mehdi Khalaji's daughter's passport was among those confiscated. Khalaji's family was banned from leaving Iran.

Views

Khalaji has written an opinion piece in New York Times on why he is against and deal with Iran

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References

This page imported content from Wikipedia on 03.03.2022.
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