As I understand it, the United States ratified a treaty that obligates it to issue visas to anyone who is appointed to serve as an ambassador to the United Nations. It was a condition of getting agreement that the United Nations would be headquartered in New York City. It seems like a reasonable expectation, don’t you think? I mean, does it seem reasonable that the United States would have what amounts to veto power over every other country on Earth’s diplomatic appointments to the United Nations?
Troublemaker that he is, I’d like to blame Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas for getting our government to violate this treaty, but his bill was co-sponsored by Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York and passed both houses of Congress with unanimous consent.
At issue is Iran’s nomination of Hamid Aboutalebi to be their ambassador to the United Nations. Mr. Aboutalebi is an experienced diplomat who has served previously as Iran’s ambassador to Australia, Italy, Belgium, and the European Union. He has several degrees in sociology, including a master’s from the Sorbonne. He has written several serious-sounding books on foreign policy.
However, when he was a 22 year old student in Teheran, he was involved in the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Iran, which led to a 444-day hostage crisis. By most accounts, he wasn’t actually one of the students that overran the compound, but was brought in later as a translator. From many Americans’ point of view, serving as a mouthpiece for Islamic kidnappers is a sin that cannot be washed away by time.
The bill that Ted Cruz designed allows the president to deny a visa to anyone who “(1) has been found to have been engaged in espionage activities or a terrorist activity against the United States or its allies, and (2) may pose a threat to U.S. national security interests.” Not a single congressperson was willing to vote against language like that, despite the fact that it will result in a violation of a treaty (the Headquarters agreement) that Harry Truman signed in 1947.
Given the fact that Congress would simply override any veto, the administration has gone along with this, declaring that Mr. Aboutalebi’s appointment is “not viable,” that the president shares the sentiments of Congress, and then refusing to offer him a visa. I suppose the only alternative to this would be to have the Justice Department declare the law unconstitutional and go to court. That would be a hard slog with Congress demonstrating unanimous support for the bill. Nonetheless, it would be, as far as I can tell, the correct interpretation of the law.
The language doesn’t say we must deny the visa, only “may.” Why is the president forced to deny a visa to the guy?
yeah, you’re right, he could declare that a mouthpiece of the Iranian hostage-takers has never engaged in terrorism and that he doesn’t pose any threat to our national security. You weren’t alive in 1979, were you?
So basically what you’re saying is that the president is the coward here, not Congress?
No, I was not, and thank god for that. Maybe when we’re in power we can look past all this anti-Iranian noise. I know when I hear the anti-Iran drumbeat on the news my eyes just roll in the back of my head.
The president is no hero in this situation, but he’s hardly alone, nor he is responsible for creating the problem.
It’s my understanding that the State Department was issuing “warnings” about him prior to this bill. Seems to me we’d have a problem regardless of Congress.
Then how is the reaction not justified? (Even if possibly illegal)
Well, for one thing, it could threaten the UN remaining in New York. It’s a ridiculous standard to set. This grown man is an experienced diplomat, not a hot-headed college student. Not issuing him a visa is a treaty violation, which is an unconstitutional act.
Imagine if all the countries that the US fucked with denied VISAS to Americans somewhat involved with it 30+ years ago.
That’d be a whole lot of Americans denied VISAS for terrorism.
Luckily, when you’re the world’s sole “Superpower”, your citizens can commit terrorism and still get into the countries they terrorized.
Now that is American Exceptionalism.
Sorry I meant morally justified, separate from what should happen which is to let him fulfill his duties at the UN.
We could always either throw them out of the US or leave the UN or both.
The right would love it.
If that’s what you would prefer.
What is your preferred method for revoking a treaty, or (as in this case) partially violating it on a highly exceptional basis?
I’d prefer it if assholes like Ted Cruz weren’t so proficient at finding ways to effectively act a demagogue and bully decent people into doing illegal things. You, too, Chuck Schumer.
We ought to honor our treaties. This man poses no threat to us.
Boo, I know you’re willing to criticize the president when he deserves it, so why are you giving him a complete pass here? It’s his call, not that of Congress. He didn’t cave to Congressional pressure to tighten sanctions, rightly pointing out that it would poison disarmament negotiations, and now he has turned around and destroyed them himself.
In 66 years of hosting the UN, the US has never before denied a visa for a foreign diplomat or leader at the UN. Not for countries we were at war with. Not for Soviet leaders, not for Fidel Castro, not for the Taliban. Yet here we are.
This is the sort of move that makes the United States untrustworthy at best, a pariah state at worst. It’s the sort of thing I’d expect from President Palin. “But Congress wants me to!” is not an excuse.
The point about the sanctions is really important. I think what’s going wrong here is the way the media work; they couldn’t blow up Obama’s refusal to tighten sanctions into a Thing because the argument would have been complicated and boring, but in the present case all they needed to do was run pictures of 20-year-old Aboutalebi with his beard. The more trivial the issue the better they can work with it.
You can’t really blame Congress. The State Department has been holding up Aboutalebi’s visa for months and called the nomination “extremely troubling” on April 2, more than a week before Congress did its stupid trick. Obama hasn’t covered himself with glory either, but it’s not easy to see what realistic choice he had.
well, I don’t think I’m giving him a “complete” pass, but I blame the demagoguery and cowardice (of both parties) for this. Left with this set of options, the president seems inclined to avoid stepping on an armed land mine.
The very interesting thing about it is that some of the former hostages, who were State Department (and CIA) employees, seem to have personal grudges after 35 years. But fail to let those grudges extend to the Republican Party, who likely benefited from 100 or more days of their continued captivity so that the GOP could defeat Jimmy Carter.
It’s time to label Chuck Schumer what he’s become (Sen.-Israel). A high-ranking Democrat stiffing his own President so blatantly used to be unacceptable behavior and used to receive subtle denial of benefits to his state. Of course, President Obama has been consistent in playing the game of “keep your friends close and your enemies closer”. Durbin was always in the Gang of Six to transmit what was going on. So it could be that Schumer’s playing the same role.
It is a major dysfunction of democratic politics when massive indirection, outright lying, and increasing the hatred of the President are effective strategies to protecting the President and getting anything at all done. But when you are dealing with corrupt, paid-off clowns who use “the crazy” to demagogue their constituents, what are you going to do?
There are areas in which historical dementia militates against wise foreign policy. Chief among them are Russia, North Korea, Cuba, and Iran. Any petty demagogue can still get knee-jerk hatred on any one of changes in relationships with any one of these countries.
The problem is that we learned too much from Munich 1939 and too little from Sarajevo 1914. Wars are failures of policy, not successes. Sometimes they are failures of the continuity of policies that go back more than a generation and have bipartisan support.
The Republicans, having succeeded in royally screwing up economic policy, now with Ukraine and this are seeking to screw up foreign policy. They want themselves a Democratic failed Presidency in the worst way. And the Congressional Democrats seem determined to allow them to have it so that Democrats won’t be held accountable for their own corruption.
Schumer couldn’t in fact care less about Israel itself, either. It’s all about the campaign funding (not his own, which he hardly needs, but the power he gets for his role in distributing it to others).
Not to get on the Schumer (D-Israel) bandwagon, but what makes you think that Schumer doesn’t care about Israel? That’s a remarkable assertion.
YOu know what, I shouldn’t have posted it and would be glad to see it disappear. I can’t find it from where I thought I saw it (and one source, M J Rosenberg, definitely does not believe this). Looking at it now is pretty embarrassing, sorry for polluting the frogpond.
The very interesting thing about it is that some of the former hostages, who were State Department (and CIA) employees, seem to have personal grudges after 35 years. But fail to let those grudges extend to the Republican Party, who likely benefited from 100 or more days of their continued captivity so that the GOP could defeat Jimmy Carter.
How many coups have the CIA fomented against right-wing governments, or ones that are even remotely right?