14. Iranian Prince Appointed to US Supreme Court

Daily Examiner, 24 July

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"Iranian Prince Appointed to US Supreme Court

In a surprise decision the President last night nominated Professor Saeed Yarvali of Georgetown University to fill the Supreme Court seat of retiring Justice Corelli.

Professor Yarvali is related to the late Shah of Iran and, until the student revolution of 1979 led to the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Yarvali had a distant claim on that nation's throne. In the course of the revolution, Yarvali's father - a member of the Shah of Iran's feared secret police - was executed by revolutionaries. Soon after, the young Yarvali fled with his mother and brother to Switzerland. For a time they managed to maintain themselves there in the comfortable lifestyle that they had enjoyed back home in Iran. However, when Switzerland froze the Geneva bank accounts of certain members of the Shah's regime the suddenly penniless Yarvalis were forced to emigrate to the United States.

During a visit to America in 1966, Mrs Yarvali had spent a week at the luxurious Everglades Country Club and resort in up-market Hampton, Illinois. Soon after her arrival as an immigrant in the United States Mrs Yarvali (a onetime member of the Iranian Olympic tennis team) returned to the Everglades, this time as an in-house tennis coach. In the years that followed the Yarvali boys attended Hampton's elementary and high schools. From here hard graft and the occasional scholarship took the young Saeed to Yale and then to Harvard where he graduated first in class from the Law School. (His younger brother followed more closely in his mother's footsteps, taking a bronze medal in swimming at the Barcelona Olympics and subsequently becoming lead swimming coach at the Everglades).

After university, Yarvali did not immediately continue with his law career, spending two years instead as a volunteer with the United Nations in Palestine. Since that time Professor Yarvali has been critical of Israel's conduct in the Palestinian territories and a prominent member of an ongoing campaign to boycott Israeli universities pending a full and final resolution of ongoing Mid-East tensions.

Given the strength of the pro-Israeli lobby within Congress, Professor Yarvali's stance towards Israel is likely to become a key area of focus during his confirmation hearings and could conceivably stymie the nomination process. Questioned about this, one administration official closely involved in the selection process indicated that Professor Yarvali's views on a particular foreign policy issue were not germane to his suitability for the office of Supreme Court justice and claimed that it would be difficult to find many Iranian-American attorneys of Professor Yarvali's calibre whose views on the Palestinian issue would entirely accord with those of the pro-Israeli lobby.

While this may be true it rather begs the question why the President would apparently go out of his way to antagonise a powerful constituency that was partly responsible for his success in the Presidential election. The answer may lie in the math. While the President scored well in east and west-coast states he did less well in central and mid-western states. In this context the President's nomination of Professor Yarvali can be seen as something of a political master-stroke. Before his appointment to Georgetown University, Yarvali spent the better part of his life living and working in Illinois and Michigan and several times in last night's nomination speech the President emphasised those mid-western connections. This courting of the mid-west has to be worth something when the President goes grubbing for votes in key mid-western states in the next Presidential election.

Of course internationally the President's nomination of Yarvali also sends a strong political message. Since 9/11 this nation has been perceived by many in the Muslim world to have embarked upon a new Crusade. The President's nomination of a prominent Muslim-American signals that such logic is unduly simplistic, that the United States can be an enemy to Muslim terrorists, yet remain a land of opportunity for Muslim people. Professor Yarvali's nomination also sends a message to the American people that there is a community within our midst who contribute much and have much to contribute to our nation's continuing prosperity. In the near constant drum-beat to war that has sounded since the Twin Towers collapsed that is a message which has often been drowned out. It remains to be seen whether it is a message that the Ameerican electorate has any appetite to hear.

During his own lifetime, Professor Yarvali has made an impressive contribution to American society. During the later Clinton administration and the first George W Bush administration, Yarvali served as head of the Civil Rights Unit within the Department of Justice. Much of his workload during this time was concerned with the continuing struggle for full equality by African-Americans and Yarvali has forged strong links with this community which will likely stand him in good stead in the confirmation proceedings before the United States Senate.

Yarvali's urbane personality and his obvious talent as helmsman of the Civil Rights Unit led to his being retained in position by President George W Bush. The reasons for his unexpected departure mid-way through Bush's first term in office have never fully been explained and may yet become a point of focus during the Senate confirmation hearings. Yarvali's profile on the website of Georgetown University Law School suggests that he left only because he was offered the position of Professor of Constitutional Law and Theory at Georgetown. However, a Justice Department official who worked with Yarvali suggested last night that Yarvali's departure was prompted by discomfort with the Bush administration's policies towards the Muslim world and, in particular, its invasion of Iraq. If true, this could be the Achilles Heel in Yarvali's generally impressive resume. The American people and their representatives on Capitol Hill are a tolerant lot but that tolerance is unlikely to extend to a Supreme Court justice who is opposed to a war in which American soldiers are dying. Unswerving patriotism of a particular sort is generally considered a prerequisite to holding high federal office.

At Georgetown, Yarvali is reputed to be a popular faculty member among both staff and students. His courses are heavily over-subscribed, though attendees are warned to come prepared: the professor apparently does not suffer fools lightly and does not suffer the under-prepared at all. In his time since joining the Georgetown law faculty, Professor Yarvali has authored a seminal textbook on civil rights law. However, it is a law review article on "Muslim Rights in Christian America", published last year, that will perhaps excite the most attention at Yarvali's confirmation hearings, particularly among those eager for their own purposes to portray Yarvali as an extremist who should not be allowed to join the nation's foremost jurists.

If Yarvali's nomination is confirmed by the US Senate and the President for one must believe that he will be - Presidents tend not to nominate sure losers - it will be a tremendous personal achievement for Yarvali and a significant political milestone for all Iranian-Americans. To go from turmoil in Tehran to a seat in America's foremost temple of justice in a single lifetime is a remarkable accomplishment. For the President to nominate the first Muslim Supreme Court justice at a time when America is embroiled in difficulties with much of the Muslim world presents a challenge to those who contend that America is fundamentally anti-Islam or anything other than a land of equal and golden opportunity for all of its people, regardless of background."