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Iranian President Travels to New York amid Setbacks, Protests

Hamid Namvar - 9/12/2005

The U.S. State Department announced on Wednesday that as required by a 1947 agreement with the United Nations an entry visa had been granted to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's new president, to attend the nextweek's UN World Summit meeting in New York. It, however, did so only after denying another Iranian top official an entry visa.

In an exclusive report last week the ABC News revealed that "the State Department says Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a terrorist." The report went on to say "the State Department has issued a legal finding that Ahmadinejad is ineligible for a U.S. visa because of section 212(a)3(b) of the Immigration and Naturalization Act, which says anyone with terrorist ties cannot be granted a visa."

It is quite evident that Ahmadinejad's presidency has further convinced Washington that Tehran is indeed bent on taking an increasingly confrontational approach in regards to its nuclear weapons program and continued subversive campaign in Iraq.

So Washington has made sure that Tehran understands Ahmadinejad is not only the president of the "most active state sponsor of terrorism", he has been determined to be a terrorist himself.

The State's announcement, however, was made following a series of reports from Tehran last weekend which chronicled a major diplomatic debacle for the clerical regime.

On Saturday, Tehran announced that Iran's Speaker of parliament Gholam-Ali Haddad Adel had not been issued a US visa to attend the Second World Conference of Speakers of Parliament in New York's UN headquarters between September 7 and 9.

Few hours later, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told the state-run radio that the UN headquarters should be removed out of US. In an obvious show of humiliation, he said the request for Adel's visa was denied even though it was filed more than two months before.

Then on Sunday Gholam-Hussein Elham, chairman of the Ahmadinejad's presidential office, boasted that Adel would certainly attend the New York conference. He added that visa would "soon" be issued for Adel and his parliamentary entourage. He attributed this to Tehran's firm diplomatic reaction to Washington.

State-run dailies widely covered this as a "great victory by the Islamic Republic" and a "humiliating about-face by the United States." On Monday several state news agencies even boasted that Ahmadinejad will fly "directly to New York" from Tehran and "for the first time in 26 years, an Iran Air flight will land at an American airport".

Official statements from Tehran seemed to suggest that Iran was fully confident Adel and his entourage were getting a visa and enter New York on a high note following a "victory" in the diplomatic spat over Adel's visa.

Then on Tuesday came Tehran's colossal diplomatic humiliation. In a haste to claim a diplomatic win just days before Ahmadinejad's trip to New York, Tehran set itself up for a major fall.

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Asefi, who had come to Tehran's international airport to say farewell to Adel and his delegation which had been waiting for some time to board the plain, held an impromptu press conference to tell reporters that Adel in fact had not obtained a visa. Adel "canceled" his trip. And in a very telling photo, Iran's Fars news agency published a picture of Adel's baggage at the airport with the caption: "the luggage which never made it to its destination."

A day later, the U.S. State Department pushed the diplomatic dagger further in by openly expressing its dismay to issue an entry visa for Ahmadinejad, and said that it was doing so only "in accordance with our obligations under the U.N. headquarters agreement." State Department's spokesman Sean McCormack went out of its way to stress that, were Ahmadinejad not a head of state, he would not have been entitled to a visa because of indications that he may have had a role in the taking of U.S. hostages in 1979.

He said "The decision. in no way indicates a change in US views or policy towards the Iranian government," adding that the United States was still looking into the Iranian president's alleged involvement in the 1979 hostage crisis.

McCormack also opened a new angle into investigations over Ahmadinejad's involvement. He correctly stated that unresolved questions about Iran's new President not only relate to the specific day of the Embassy take-over, they also deal with "his activities in the subsequent period in which American citizens were held for 444 days."

This could prove to be very significant. The embassy occupation had three phases: planning, execution, and 444 days of occupation. So far investigation on Ahmadinejad's involvement has mainly focused on the day of the take-over. There are at least six former American hostages who have identified him as one of their integrators during their captivity, the third phase.

Now against this background, Ahmadinejad is coming to the United States in midst of several major diplomatic setbacks. He arrives in New York while on one hand he is been called a terrorist by Washington, and on the other hand Iran's ultra-conservative Speaker was denied a U.S. visa to come to New York.

That's not all. News of Ahmadinejad's trip to NY has stirred the fury of Iranian-Americans who are reportedly campaigning against his presence. Ahmadinejad's notoriety among Iranians goes beyond the issue of terrorism. He is widely known to have moved up through the ranks of Iran's Revolutionary Guards by taking part in Iran's massive political killings of dissidents in 1980s and assassination of prominent opposition figures abroad.

One of the more vocal groups is the "New York Committee against Ahmadinejad". According to Associated Press, the committee held a press conference in New York last week to denounce Ahmadinejad's visit, "citing the new leader's alleged ties to terrorist activities abroad and repressive policies at home." In a statement to news media, the New York-based group announced it would hold a large peaceful rally on September 14, outside the UN Headquarters where "New Yorkers and Iranian-Americans from nearly 40 states will come together" against Ahmadinejad.

It may turn out that an Iran Air flight carrying Ahmadinejad would land for the first time in an American airport since 1979. However, the most significant legacy of his trip could be that his diplomatic scheme was pre-empted by Iranian-Americans and the State Department, long before his Iran Air flight took off Tehran's airport.

The only remaining question is whether he is going be finger-printed at the New York airport given Washington's finding that he has terrorist ties and is representing a regime officially branded as the most active state-sponsor of terrorism.