If Hamid Aboutalebi really represented a credible threat to the securiy of the US a plausible case could be made for the latter's flouting of its legal obligation to grant a visa to Iran's new UN ambassador. But President Obama's decision has nothing to do with security. And no-one has even claimed it does. He is playing domestic politics, kowtowing to a Republican-drafted resolution that sailed through both houses of Congress and which draws attention to Aboutalebi's involvement in the 444-day hostage stand-off in Tehran in 1979.
In 1947 the US as UN host nation enacted legislation guaranteeing that it would not interfere, except if a security threat was involved, in the world body’s or its members’ choice of representatives – no matter how objectionable – or impede their travel. On that basis the headquarters was established in New York.
The US has largely honoured that undertaking, in the past giving visas to some of the world’s most unpleasant dictators. Last year, however, Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court, was unable to travel to New York for the UN General Assembly after his visa application was left pending and in 2012 the US denied visas to about 20 Iranian government officials, including two ministers, also hoping to attend the General Assembly.
Iran has protested with some justice and said it will complain through the UN's legal system about Aboutalebi's treatment. The new envoy is a veteran diplomat and a close political adviser to moderate president Hassan Rouhani, he has served as Iran's ambassador to Belgium, Italy, Australia and the European Union and had only the most peripheral involvement in the hostage crisis , serving briefly as an interpreter for the students.
The denial of the visa is a shortsighted pandering to domestic politics and likely to prove counterproductive in the critical talks in Vienna about Iran’s nuclear programme. No state can accept another’s right to pick its representatives – dialogue becomes impossible.