College Republican Federation of Virginia

Iran announced today that it will hold a meeting of Palestinian terrorist groups on the same day that the U.S. is hosting Israel and her Arab neighbors, including Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in an effort to counter the U.S.-led efforts to restart the peace process. While Iran has been a longtime ally of Palestinian terror groups, this “conference” marks a new low for the theocratic regime.

Normally Iran supports terror through covert training, arms sales, and direct cash payments; with the occasional rhetorical malarkey about freedom struggles and of course, holocaust denial. This is the first time that a formal diplomatic conference has been held where terrorist groups have been the primary participants. This so-called conference marks a turning point in Iran’s evolution as a rogue state. It is no longer content to flout international norms and standards, but has now taken to perverting long-established international processes as well.

As the leader of the current rogue-state movement (having surpassed North Korea), Iran seems to have made it a policy to discern international standards, and then act in direct opposition to them. This mantra has been taken up by countries such as Venezuela and Sudan and has been seemingly re-adopted by Russia and China. This movement is far more dangerous than the terrorism it breeds today, as it represents a direct and weighty threat to the very system of international conduct which has allowed the U.S. and its allies to prosper.

Henry Kissinger argued, correctly, that the most effective way for the U.S. to accomplish its interests was for it to craft an international order where statescraft was the norm and the state was the sole legitimate actor. Statescraft should be defined, he argued, along Western diplomatic principles; which would unequivocally benefit the U.S. as the primary Western state. The international system we have today is largely a reflection of Kissinger’s idea, with some notably unhelpful additions [NGO’s].

Iran’s sponsorship of this alternative conference represents a dangerous challenge to this order, as it brings terrorists into one of the hallmarks of statescraft, the diplomatic conference. These terrorists are the anathema of international norms. They represent no sovereign power nor do they posses any international legitimacy. Iran’s sponsorship of this abominable conference should be viewed for what it is, yet another threat to the international system itself; a system established, defined, and largely controlled by the U.S., which means it is yet another threat to the U.S. itself.