Iran’s Brain Drain Problem
Educated Iranians are leaving the country in droves. Can you blame them?
According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Iran has the world’s highest rate of brain drain. Every year, more than 150,000 highly educated Iranians leave their country. The majority emigrate to the U.S., Europe, Canada, and Australia. The damage caused by this phenomenon is estimated to be $40 billion a year.
The rates of Iran’s brain drain are reaching such astronomical figures that the Iranian press is beginning to suspect that a conspiracy is involved, schemed and carried out by the West with the help of Iran’s neighbors. This was indicated recently in an article published by Tabnak, which is Iran’s most popular online news agency. Its owner, Mohsen Rezai, has close connections to government officials such as Ayatollah Rafsanjani, and senior officers within Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
One event which has strengthened this conspiracy theory is the defection of Ali Reza Asgari, a top IRGC general, in March 2007. According to Western media reports, he was lured away by the promise of millions of dollars and a better future. His defection is believed to have caused considerable damage to Iran’s intelligence network and nuclear program. Another is a CIA-engineered nuclear brain drain from Iran, which was carried out in 2005 with limited success.
Some pro-government elements in Iran now suspect that the West wants to weaken Iran’s economic infrastructure to the point of collapse by luring away its top graduates and professionals. The methods applied in such cases to lure away Iran’s top talent are much less cloak and dagger, as was the case with Asgari. They include an increase in the number of issued student visas and work permits. And many of those who are moving abroad are succeeding. One only has to look at top technology companies and universities in the U.S. One successful Iranian among many is Anousheh Ansari, the first female space tourist and leading telecommunications entrepreneur. There is also Firouz Naderi, NASA director of the Mars project, as well as many others.
Those blaming the West for this phenomenon may be getting carried away with their conspiracy theories. Nevertheless, the Iranian government has every reason to be concerned. One example is Iran’s airline sector. Already beset by maintenance problems due to sanctions, it now has to deal with the new phenomenon of pilot shortages. Increasing numbers of Iranian pilots are leaving their $450-a-month jobs in Iran for $7,000 monthly salaries paid by newly established Persian Gulf airlines. This phenomenon is damaging Iran’s struggling tourism and transportation sector.
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Meir Javedanfar is the co-author with Yossi Melman of The Nuclear Sphinx of Tehran: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the State of Iran. He runs Middle East Economic and Political Analysis (MEEPAS).
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13 Comments
1. abu yussif:when these regimes start talking about “conspiracies” regarding things like, as in this situation, prosperous independent-thinking people leaving a backward thugocracy for a better life, you have to wonder if they actually believe it themselves.
if that is a conspiracy, then why not the idea that the mullahs are really financed by american agents and the mossad to cause iran’s best and brightest to come to the west where their talents can be exploited on behalf of the great satan himself? in their world that’s just as reasonable to assume.
Dec 15, 2008 - 1:38 am 2. RightwingHippyChick:The mullahs ought to be counting their lucky stars that so many capable people are leaving rather than decide to take their country back and make the mullahs leave instead…
Dec 15, 2008 - 2:58 am 3. Saltherring:Devil-worshippers like Ahmadimenad and the mullahs are more than happy to let the intellectual class leave Iran, as such people pose the only internal threat to the present government. The sheeple that are left have enough brains to produce the only products the mullahs are interested in exporting….suicide bombers, terrorists and radical Islam.
Dec 15, 2008 - 3:40 am 4. Toad:There is an old saying, “Do you want him inside the tent pissing out, or outside the tent pissing in.”
Dec 15, 2008 - 4:07 am 5. Craig:The Mullahs require money to stay in power. Also it is getting harder for the populace remaining to get food on the table. Another old saying is that, “Three missed meals and a government falls.”
“Increasing numbers of Iranian pilots are leaving their $450-a-month jobs in Iran for $7,000 monthly salaries paid by newly established Persian Gulf airlines.”
Ahhhhh capitalism. Praise allah.
Dec 15, 2008 - 4:17 am 6. Roger L Simon:The problem decent Iranians have is their choice is between mafiosi (Rafsanjani, et al) and psychopathic theocrats (Ahmadinejad). There is no good choice but to leave.
Dec 15, 2008 - 12:25 pm 7. Tamara Wilhite:This could simply be a matter that those who know of a better life do not want to live under Sharia. Or this could be a matter of Shariah discriminating against the intelligent. Or it could be a matter of those with the ability to leave do, while many other Persians would leave if they could.
Dec 15, 2008 - 4:45 pm 8. a Duoist:Very few people would actually choose to live under Shariah. That’s why it has to be enforced by the sword.
The best and brightest Iranian students might well be moving to the Anglosphere for an education, but they are discovering that Anglo immigration laws make it very difficult to stay once they have completed their degrees. In the US, young Iranian PhD’s are being forced to go home after their student visas have expired.
Dec 16, 2008 - 11:42 am 9. DD:The mullah’s loss is our gain. Some of our best graduate students are ‘Persian’ (as they describe themselves). They are smart, have a reasonably good work ethic and a lot of pride in their ancient history of civilization. Persians are NOT the enemies of the west. The regime is another matter.
Dec 16, 2008 - 12:48 pm 10. Gary:Boy, I wish I could spell schadenfreude.
Dec 16, 2008 - 4:13 pm 11. J'hn1:Well, if the stay loyal to that branch of Islam (or are likely to come back to it) they should be referred to as “colonists”. Ask the citizens (but not politicians) of the “old EU” countries.
Dec 17, 2008 - 9:08 am 12. kabud:LET MY PEOPLE GO!!!
Dec 17, 2008 - 8:21 pm 13. Dark Helmet:That’s funny…. some of the best and brightest are already here and have been great Americans since dimmy karter let Iran go to the mooslimes. If reeeally smart people leave, then shouldn’t most of hollyweird been gone 8 years ago?
Dec 19, 2008 - 10:07 am