US sent CIA Director as Ambassador to Tehran after CIA overthrew Iran’s Gov't
By Juan Cole |
The decision of the Obama administration and the resolution passed by Congress barring entry to Iran’s designated ambassador to the United Nations has angered Tehran and provoked demonstrations in Iran. Hamid Aboutalebi has served as ambassador to several European countries. He is accused by Washington politicians of having participated in the taking of US diplomats hostage in 1979-81. Aboutalebi says that he was not among the militants who took the hostages, but rather later on agreed to serve as a translator for the group.
The hostage-taking in revolutionary Iran is a deeply distasteful episode that contravened international law as well as Shiite Islamic law (which recognizes the immunity of diplomats). I have friends among the surviving diplomats, and don’t forgive the criminals who terrorized them.
Ironically, Iran is condemning the US exclusion of Aboutalebi as a contravention of international law, and pledging to go to the United Nations over it rather than sending a new ambassador.
The tiff is unfortunate because Iran and the permanent members of the UN Security Council are engaged in talks with Iran aimed at ensuring that the latter’s civilian nuclear enrichment program can never be weaponized. Presumably it would be useful to have an Iranian ambassador to the UN right about now. Presumably Iran’s clerical Leader Ali Khamenei sent Aboutalebi at this time precisely because of his minor role in the hostage incident, as a way of mollifying Iran’s hard liners, who are upset about the talks and the Iranian government’s apparent willingness to offer the West more transparency about its enrichment processes and facilities.
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http://www.juancole.com/2014/04/ambassador-overthrew-democratic.html
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