As new intelligence unearths doubts about Iran's desire to build nuclear weapons, state Sen. Scott Brown (LA '81) tried to rally on-campus support for divestment legislation.
In an appearance last night in Eaton Hall, Brown advocated for a plan that would withdraw the Massachusetts' Pension Reserves Investment Management Board's (PRIMB) funding for corporations that do business in Iran. This would lead to around $1.1 billion worth of divestment.
"The biggest problem that we have and that I have with what's going on in Iran ... is on the one hand we talk tough, but then we turn around and we fund these companies," he said.
Although supporters of a firmer policy towards Iran received a jolt yesterday as reports came out that the country may have stopped its attempts to build nuclear weapons as far back as 2003, they remain confident that the Tehran regime supports terrorism.
Brown, a Republican, hopes the divestment would encourage the Iranian government to spend its money more appropriately.
"These countries that are sponsoring terrorism aren't using the money for their people," he said. "They are taking land from their farmers [and] they are not doing anything to protect their environment."
Brown's remarks came a month after Massachusetts Government Deval Patrick signed a bill supporting the divestment of pension funds from Sudan.
Brown initially pushed for a more expansive divestment that would extend to Sudan as well as North Korea, Iran and Syria.
Now that the Sudan legislation has passed, he has shifted his focus primarily to Iran rather than to North Korea and Syria.
"While he wanted to get all those states included, he just didn't have the political capital to do that," freshman and Tufts Republicans member Chas Morrison said. The Republicans sponsored the speech with Tufts' Friends of Israel.
The Iran bill now has around 80 cosponsors, and Brown hopes to keep it on the minds of his colleagues.
"You need to really push the buttons of the leaders," he said.
But these very leaders appear unwilling to budge, as they have helped keep the proposal tabled, according to Morrison.
Brown feels that such a passive approach will be ineffective. "We have all this money that we are investing in Iran," he said. "There comes a time when you've go to stand up and make a choice."
Still, the opposition does not end in the legislature. Michael Travaglini, the executive director of the state's PRIMB has expressed concern because divestment from Iran would be a lot more expansive than the parallel plan in Sudan that Patrick has supported.
The latter initiative involves $80-100 million of state funds, as compared to the $1.1 billion that would need to be pulled out of Iran, according to the Boston Globe.
"The rule of thumb for investments is you sell the stocks that aren't performing well and run with the funds that are," Travaglini told the Globe. "This [Iran] legislation runs counter to that. There's a very real potential to negatively impact the investment returns of the pension funds."
While at Tufts, Brown was the president of the Latin club, a fraternity brother and an athlete. But it took a civil war in Lebanon to remind him of the importance of a global outlook.
"Based on what was happening back then in Lebanon, I felt compelled to do something more than just hang out at the fraternity and drink beers," he said.
He later joined the armed services, which helped to expand his horizons. "As a result of the kind of training and the knowledge I have as an officer, ... I have come to learn about a lot of what is happening not just in Massachusetts and in my hometown, but throughout the world," he said.
Morrison said he was impressed by Brown's remarks. "I thought he presented a very interesting case about how the state of Massachusetts is indirectly funding terrorism through its pension investments," he said.
