A Georgetown University professor expressed his “hope” that Iran would strike an American military base — just one day before it did so.
“I’m not an expert, but I assume Iran could still get a bomb easily,” Dr. Jonathan Brown wrote in a since-deleted X post on Sunday. “I hope Iran does some symbolic strike on a base, then everyone stops.”
Brown — who serves as Chair of the department of Arabic and Islamic studies and the Alwaleed bin Talal Chair of Islamic Civilization at Georgetown — went on to lob crude insults at both the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and Reza Pahlavi, the Crown Prince of Iran.
President Donald Trump announced late Saturday that the United States struck Iran’s secret, underground nuclear facility with six 30,000-pound “bunker buster” bombs. Iran retaliated on Monday, firing missiles at an American military base in Qatar. There have been no reported injuries.
The Daily Wire obtained comments from Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) on the professor’s post in light of the recent attacks on the American military base in Qatar.
Ernst said, “Especially after Iranian missiles were launched at American bases, it is disgusting for a professor in our homeland to wish for an attack on our brave servicemembers and call for more harm to Israel.”
“Antisemitic campus crazies continue to have a shameful obsession with supporting Iran and its terrorist proxies,” Ernst continued. “Make no mistake — the American people are safer and more secure today because of President Trump’s leadership.”
Brown deleted his post and shared an apology after being met with backlash.
“I deleted my previous tweet because a lot of people were interpreting it as a call for violence,” Brown said. “That’s not what I intended. I have two immediate family members in the US military who’ve served abroad and wouldn’t want any harm to befall American soldiers… or anyone!”
Brown’s father-in-law, Sami Al-Arian, is also a well-known academic and is convicted of aiding a terrorist group. Al-Arian, who was a professor of computer science at the University of South Florida, was sentenced to almost five years in prison for assisting the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in 2006. Al-Arian was subsequently deported to Turkey in 2015.