In case you missed it, the Biden administration granted visas to Russia and Iran so that they could attend the United Nations gathering last week.
The United States allowed [1] Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Russia’s Lavrov into our country after approving 24 visas.
They also allowed Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi and his delegation into the country for the gathering.
In a 1947 United Nations “headquarters agreement” our country is required, generally, to allow access to the U.N. for foreign diplomats. However, they CAN deny visas for security, terrorism, and foreign policy reasons.
In the case of Raisi, denying his entry would have been more than reasonable because of his “involvement in mass murder and the Iranian regime’s campaign to assassinate U.S. officials on American soil.” These are the reasons that seven Republicans senators cited in a letter [2] sent to President Biden on August 2nd in an effort to get the president to deny the visas.
It was only a few weeks ago, the Justice Department had announced charges for an assassination plot against former U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton [3] as well former Defense Secretary Mark Esper and former State Department Special Representative for Iran, Brian Hook.
But hey, they are all Republicans, so Biden was all good with allowing the Iranians to fly over to visit us.
The U.N. shouldn’t even be taken seriously to begin with when they cite gender equality and climate change as serious global problems to tackle. Serious problems would be stopping the war in Ukraine and dealing with countries like Russia and Iran. But not only are they NOT willing to do that, they give the them platforms to speak.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was right when he said that the nations are “gridlocked in colossal global dysfunction” and aren’t ready or willing to “tackle the major challenges that threaten the future of humanity and the fate of the planet.”
That’s certainly true.
He just has a different definition of what needs to be tackled than I do but he is not wrong saying that the U.N. is worthless.