Did the State Department Just Let an Architect of October 7 into America?By Jimmy Quinn
For the second time since the October 7 attack, the State Department has granted a visa to Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, to attend meetings at the U.N. this week in New York. That’s noteworthy, of course, because Iran is a significant backer of Hamas and the rest of the so-called “axis of resistance,” including the Houthis.
Amir-Abdollahian, who arrived today, was quick to meet with another of Tehran’s partners: The Russian foreign ministry posted a picture of him with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who is also in town for meetings at the U.N. Security Council this week.
Amir-Abdollahian played a major role in building out Iran’s alliances with regional terrorist groups as the de facto foreign minister of Qassem Soleimani’s Quds Force. In fact, an Iranian lawmaker once called him “another Qassem Soleimani in the field of diplomacy,” in recognition of his efforts to unite Iran’s many terrorist allies throughout the region.
If you buy into the Wall Street Journal’s October 8 report on Iran’s role in planning the massacres in Israel, he’s also a key architect of that terrorist attack. If that reporting is accurate, Amir-Abdollahian attended key planning meetings leading up to October 7, though many analysts have expressed skepticism of the degree of direct Iranian involvement in approving it in the way that the Journal described.
Either way, given Amir-Abdollahian’s close coordination with the Quds Force, the Biden administration has ample reason to claim an exemption to the U.N. headquarters agreement that otherwise compels the U.S. to grant visas to its adversaries. But for the second time since October 7, State has apparently chosen not to exercise that option.
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