It worked. Fearing it would lose, or fearing bad publicity that might get beamed back into the country, on April 23. The human rights groups claimed “victory.” American officials spoke loftily of a “step in the right direction.”
And the result? Five days later, another committee, the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women — a body dedicated to “gender equality and the advancement of women” — put out a turgid news release announcing its new members. Among them will be . . . the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Which is fine, unless you think that the “advancement of women” should not include stoning them for alleged adultery. And unless you think, as I do, that it is time to abandon the fiction of U.N. human rights diplomacy altogether — or if you worry, as perhaps we all ought to, that Iran knows its way around U.N. nuclear diplomacy better than we imagine.
