Georgetown Prof Walks Back Statement That Iran Should Perform ‘Symbolic’ Strike on US Base
“I’m not an expert, but I assume Iran could still get a bomb easily. I hope Iran does some symbolic strike on a base, then everyone stops.”
Have you noticed that the nuttiest comments in these situations tend to come from higher education?
Campus Reform reports:
Georgetown professor walks back statement that Iran should perform ‘symbolic’ strike on U.S. base
A Georgetown University educator appeared to indicate that he hopes that Iran strikes a United States military base after the U.S. struck Iran’s nuclear facilities on Saturday.
Jonathan Brown, Georgetown’s chair of the Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies and the director of the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, made the comments to his X account on Sunday.
“I’m not an expert, but I assume Iran could still get a bomb easily. I hope Iran does some symbolic strike on a base, then everyone stops,” said Brown.
“I’m surprised this is what these FDD/Hasbara people have been auto-erotically asphyxiating themselves for all these years,” his post continued.
He also posted, “Ironically, the main takeaways (in my non-expert opinion, and I’m happy to be corrected) from all this have nothing to do with a US attack: 1) Iran can a licking; 2) if Israel attacks Iranian cities, it gets f****d up pretty bad.”
“I mean I’ve been shocked at the damage Iranian missiles caused; 3) despite his best efforts, Reza Pahlavi HVAC repair services still only third best in Nova,” his post concluded.
After Brown’s message went viral on social media, he reportedly backtracked on his claims, stating that he was not, in fact, calling for violence. “I deleted my previous tweet because a lot of people were interpreting it as a call for violence. That’s not what I intended,” he posted.
“I have two immediate family members in the US military who’ve served abroad and wouldn’t want any harm to befall American soldiers,” Brown added in his since-deleted post.
On Monday, Iran targeted a U.S. Air Base in Qatar following America’s bombing of three major Iranian nuclear sites.
Since the initial post, Brown has made his X account private. Now, only his followers can read what he posts.
Professor at Georgetown University @Georgetown says he hopes Iran strikes a US base pic.twitter.com/KaasDhgprQ
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) June 23, 2025
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Comments
I’m tired of this contrived first amendment bs. This ahole can say whatever he wants. He’s not entitled to his platform to say it though. That platform is the university that shelters him and bubbles him up. There needs to be consequences for running your mouth. There aren’t for college employees. Firing him would not violate his first amendment rights. He could still spout of his stupidity whenever he wants.
If Georgetown were a government university then firing him for his protected speech would violate the first amendment. Private universities are not bound by the first amendment, but academic freedom, which is an inherent term of a professor’s contract, has much the same effect.