Shooting yourself in the foot

I’ll be on Al Hurra this afternoon discussing the American failure to give an Iranian diplomat a visa to come to New York to represent his government at the UN.  Yesterday, Eli Lake and I exchanged barbs on the subject:

Eli Lake

An Iranian diplomat participated in hostage taking in 1979, 35 years later he can’t get a visa. Typical neocon, guilt-by-asociation smears.

DanielSerwer

What if the Vietnamese had taken your approach to Pete Peterson as US ambassador there? Would you have supported Hanoi?

Eli Lake ‏

Nope. I am an American exceptionalist.

That was a flip response. I don’t think these things are comparable for many reasons. The Iranians knew what they were doing.

Part of the problem here is that Iran has historically violated consular agreements all the time, using embassies for terror

DanielSerwer

I’m an exceptionalist too, but it’s a limited resource. Use sparingly (and not when counterproductive).

So did we [know what we were doing] when we named Peterson. He helped counter possible domestic opposition.

Eli Lake

Sure, but in that case the peace was pretty much in place. For US and Iran, peace process is just starting.