Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann this morning said President Obama should take steps to prevent the president of Iran from attending the United Nations General Assembly, a move that would violate a long-standing promise the U.S. made when the U.N. moved into New York.
“By his own words, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has demonstrated himself to be an enemy not only of the state of Israel, but also of the United States of America,” Bachmann said during a news conference in Des Moines.
Back in 1947, U.S. officials promised the country would not block foreign diplomats from countries that are U.N. members from going to the U.N. headquarters. Iran’s president has attended U.N. sessions before and he intends to be there this week as Palestinian officials ask that Palestine be recognized as member of the United Nations.
During her news conference this morning, Bachmann argued President Obama could bar Ahmadinejad’s entry into the U.S.
“In his reported statements that he wishes to see another sovereign nation ‘wiped off the map,’ he has proven that he is in violation of the United Nations charter, and of international law,” Bachmann says. “Since he is, in the most literal sense, an outlaw, he should be not allowed in the United States of America.”
Bachmann blasts President Obama for engaging in a strategy of “appeasement” with Iran which is making a “madman” like Ahmadinejad an even greater threat to “peace-loving” people around the world.
Ahmadinejad has visited the United Nations before, but the Bush Administration, for example, restricted his travel beyond going to and from the U.N. in New York. Cuban President Fidel Castro has often visited the U.N. in the past despite the chilly relations between the U.S. and Cuba. In 2009, Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi wanted to pitch an elaborate traveling tent for his visit to the U.N., but was banned from doing so in New Jersey and New York.