Alireza Jafarzadeh
Alireza Jafarzadeh is the Deputy Director of the Washington office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran. He is also the author of The Iran Threat (Palgrave MacMillan; New York 2008), and president of Strategic Policy Consulting.
Jafarzadeh is an Iranian policy expert who has been on the forefront of efforts to ensure that the Iranian regime does not acquire a nuclear weapon.
Biography of Alireza Jafarzadeh
Alireza Jafarzadeh is the author of The Iran Threat (Palgrave MacMillan; New York 2008), and president of Strategic Policy Consulting, Inc. In 2013, he became the Deputy Director of the Washington office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran.
The international concerns about Iran’s nuclear weapons program has largely arisen from Jafarzadeh’s stunning revelations about more than a dozen major previously secret nuclear sites. Jafarzadeh revealed the existence of Natanz uranium enrichment facility, and Arak’s heavy water facility in 2002, Kalaye Electric centrifuge testing facility near Tehran, and Lashkar Ab’ad laser enrichment facility in 2003. His nuclear revelations in August 2002 triggered, for the first time, inspection of Iranian sites by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
In September 2010, Mr. Jafarzadeh exposed yet another secret uranium enrichment site 120 km west of Tehran under construction deep in the mountains. In April 2011, in a press conference in Washington, Alireza Jafarzadeh revealed a new nuclear site, known as TABA, where Iran has been secretly building centrifuge parts. Tehran had to concede to the existence of this site two days later.
In July 2011, Jafarzadeh exposed further details about Iran forming a new organization (SPND) under the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp to concentrate all the activities of the nuclear program to accelerate its bomb making. The State Department later designated SPND.
In February 2015, Jafarzadeh exposed details of yet another underground nuclear site, Lavizan-3, where Iran has been clandestinely doing research and development with advanced centrifuges.
Jafarzadeh first disclosed the details of Iran’s involvement in the 1996 bombing of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, and the 1994 bombing of the Jewish Community Center in Argentina.
As an accomplished analyst, he has frequently appeared on major television and radio broadcasts including CBS Evening News, CNN-American Morning, CNN, Headline, MSNBC, Fox News, Fox Business, C-Span, Bloomberg TV, Wall Street Journal TV, France 24, AP TV, and Bloomberg radio.
He has published essays in, been interviewed by, or quoted in New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Philadelphia Inquirer, Time, Christian Science Monitor, Boston Globe, Newsday, New York Post, The Hill, Roll Call, Huffington Post, Washington Times, Financial Times, Le Monde, Spiegel, Associated Press, Reuters, AFP, and UPI.
Jafarzadeh was the keynote speaker for the class of 2007 and 2008 at the National War College. In addition, he has lectured at Georgetown University, George Mason University, University of Michigan, and the University of Baltimore and has been a frequent speaker at briefings, panels, hearings and luncheons at the US Congress, the United Nations, Chicago Council on Global Affairs, John’s Hopkins University, American University, National Young Leaders Conference, and the Newsmaker Program at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.
Jafarzadeh earned his Bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor, and his Master’s degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Texas, in Austin. Prior coming to the United States, he studied at Sharif University of Technology in Tehran.
