Model UN Reflection...Iran rocked it

Model UN was an interesting experience. It was not set up in the manner that I had expected. I thought each nation would remain in La Rose digital theater throughout the entire simulation but I was pleased to see that we each had our own room to operate in secrecy. This ensure that everyone had the ability to speak their mind and our leaders were able to research our different ideas to analyze the viability of our decisions.

I enjoyed meeting with other nations to negotiate various deals. I felt as though I had a stake in the process by orchestrating the pacts we made and having a central role in the process. It was interesting to be able to leave our group's room and converse with other nations as though we were truly diplomats. This gave me a real sense for what it is like to be a foreign diplomat in international relations. Additionally, I gained an appreciation for the complexity and difficulty in making a move at the international level. Various alliances, pacts, treaties, economic interests and enemies make it quite difficult to work with other nations.

I feel as though it would have been beneficial for our group to have completed more research on the history of Iran so that we were fully aware of the precedents for decisions we wanted to make. We had a fundamental understanding of each minister's duties and the scope of their rule; however, it would have been helpful to understand why some of our ideas were not feasible in the context of reality. Each participant should have been required to compile a list of allies and enemies and the context for which each entity is labeled as such.

I was very proud to orchestrate a deal with China in which our oil deficiency was fully taken care of and an alliance was formed if Iran were threatened by another state. In a second meeting we were able to convince China to invest in our water system to improve the quality and cleanliness of the purification process. I believe our negotiation skills allowed us to take advantage of the representatives China sent to meet with us. After their group realized how much they had relinquished for permission to set up an intelligence agency near the sea, they sent new representatives to orchestrate negotiations. This was a clear sign of success on the behalf of Iranian ministers.

It would have been interesting if we had made the acquisition of nukes a top priority from the beginning of the game. With such power, I believe the dynamics of our objectives for the rest of the game would have significantly shifted. Because we were not able to acquire the nukes until late in the game, we were not able to pose a security threat to other nations.


Overall, I believe our group (led by great IR students) was very successful. This success made the simulation very enjoyable and eye opening to the real process that the UN must work within each day.