Iranian Universities enter Iraq

Al-Mustafa Al-Amin University is a clear victory for Islamic Azad and Iran’s soft power ambitions in the region. Despite being neighbors and having signed over 50 scientific and academic memoranda of understanding with the government in Baghdad, only around 3,000 Iraqi students are enrolled in Iranian universities.

Indeed, Iran’s ambitions for overseas academic expansion have up to now largely been held in check. Islamic Azad has several foreign branches, the first of which was established when its late founder Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was also Iran’s president (1989-1997). In 1990, the first non-Iran Islamic Azad campus was opened in Beirut, followed by Dubai in 1995.

After Rafsanjani lost the presidency in 1997, Islamic Azad found it remarkably harder to expand overseas. In 2004, the university established a center in Oxford, and only in 2010 could Islamic Azad convince the Afghan government to certify a branch in Kabul. Islamic Azad still hopes to expand to Russia and Austria.

Except for Lebanon, where Islamic Azad is active in several cities, these foreign branches are small. More importantly, none of the overseas Islamic Azad branches have been able to garner the necessary prestige to attract the brightest students and local elites. This is what sets Islamic Azad apart from AUI in Sulaimaniyah.

While some analysts have expressed alarm at Iran’s projected presence in Iraq, arguing that it risks escalating sectarian tensions further, others, notably the Iranians, believe that they are part of an effort to reconstruct higher education in Iraq and provide a basis for the exchange of knowledge and ideas. Both sides to this debate are partly right.

However, it is unlikely that any private or foreign actor can take it upon themselves to repair Iraq’s educational crisis. Without the state’s capacity to establish credible and quality institutions embedded in local labor markets, Iraq’s smartest and wealthier students will continue to leave the country in the hope of a better future.