The Biden-Harris administration's decision to grant visas to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi for the UN General Assembly is not a routine diplomatic courtesy. It is a deliberate signal that a regime funding terrorist proxies and targeting American bases in the Gulf can still expect a seat in New York and a welcome on American soil. That is not diplomacy; it is appeasement with a nameplate.
State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott tried to frame the move as a crackdown, noting the delegation is smaller than in previous years and will face travel restrictions and prohibitions on luxury purchases. The bar for 'tough on Iran' has apparently fallen so low that denying a shopping spree counts as a policy victory.
Meanwhile, the conflict that began in February after joint U.S.-Israeli strikes continues to rattle global energy markets and regional security. The regime can keep attacking American interests, but its officials will simply have to skip their shopping sprees.
The administration's priorities are even clearer when set against its treatment of the Palestinian delegation. It denied them visas, citing a lack of recognition for their legitimacy, while opening the door to the Iranian regime.
Whatever the merits of recognizing the Palestinian delegation, the inconsistency is unmistakable: the United States is willing to accommodate the regime that sponsors terrorism while refusing to engage with those who do not. That is not a coherent foreign policy; it is a hierarchy of grievance that rewards the worst behavior.
This same failure of governance is not confined to the UN. In Spain, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez's government ignored intelligence warnings of a mass border breach and then watched Ceuta spiral into chaos. Police fired warning shots and deployed drones as migrants broke through cordons during the transfer to a tented facility.
Local officials described the enclave as a 'pressure cooker' whose security had been dismantled. Conservative critics were right to call the government 'directly responsible.' When officials treat borders as an inconvenience, the result is not compassion; it is a crisis that falls on ordinary citizens.
The same impulse to centralize control is now coming from Brussels. The European Commission's 'EU Kids Act' would ban children under 13 from social media, force 13-to-15-year-olds into 'mini accounts' tethered to parental profiles, and create a centralized EU age-verification app.
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen claims this puts parents 'back in the driving seat,' but it actually puts the state in the driver's seat. It overrides national laws, imposes fines of up to 6% of global sales, and applies to AI chatbots, online games, and video platforms.
The answer to genuine online safety concerns is not a surveillance regime controlled by international bureaucrats.
The House has passed legislation authorizing tariffs of up to 100% on nations that keep buying Russian oil, a direct challenge to India and China. That is the kind of leverage that should be applied to Iran as well. Make the regime pay for its proxies instead of rewarding it with visas. The United States has the tools to be tough; what it lacks is the will.
The White House cannot claim to be tough on Russia while handing visas to Iran's leadership. It cannot defend the rule of law while allied governments ignore intelligence warnings and abandon their borders. And it cannot lecture families about safety while centralizing control over their children's digital lives. At stake is not just one UN visit.
It is the principle that American sovereignty means something, that borders are real, that families are the first line of authority over their children, and that the United States does not reward its enemies.
The remedy is not more international forums or more bureaucratic 'safety' mandates; it is accountable government that puts the interests of the nation first. Until that changes, the red carpet will keep rolling out for the wrong people.
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