Hamid Aboutalebi
Iran is insisting that the United States accept its decision to appoint a former terrorist as its representative to the United Nations. The UN convened a closed-door meeting on Tuesday to address Tehran's objection to Washington's refusal to grant a visa to would-be ambassador Hamid Aboutalebi. President Barack Obama signed into law last week a bill initiated by Senator Cruz preventing countries from appointing terrorists as their U.N. ambassadors. "Iran is persisting in attempts to somehow ram through a terrorist as its U.N. ambassador," U.N. expert and human rights activist Anne Bayefsky told theWashington Free Beacon. "It makes sense for Iran, the lead state-sponsor of terrorism. It may even make sense for the U.N., which to this day has no definition of terrorism because of the chokehold of Islamic states on the organization." Bayefsky also recommended that Congress take "the next step-taking a much closer look at the many NGOs that the U.N. accredits and for which it generates passes, and that encourage terrorism and violence against the United States and its allies." The UN Committee on Relations with the Host Country can make recommendations to the General Assembly, which in turn can adopt decisions asking Washington to change course. US law will, however, continue to govern and cannot be overturned by the General Assembly, even if Tehran manages to garner sufficient support in the GA.