Melania at the UN: Pomp Without Purpose

On Monday, I arrived at the United Nations Headquarters to observe the 10,113th meeting of the Security Council, devoted to the theme of Children, Technology, and Education in Conflict. The building was thronged with dignitaries and journalists, all eager to catch a glimpse of the day’s chairperson: Melania Trump. It was the first time in UN history that a sitting first lady had performed this role. And it was somewhat astonishing to behold the transformative effect that a single pair of stilettos can have on the atmosphere in this vast office complex.

The first lady made no explicit reference to the joint American–Israeli military campaign against the Islamic Republic of Iran that her husband had launched last week. Victims on the Iranian side have included none other than Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei as well as numerous other senior regime officials.

Tragically, there was also an explosion at a girls’ elementary school in Minab, a southern town near the Strait of Hormuz. At least 160 people were killed, and dozens of others injured. It is unclear whether this was a missile that went astray due to a mechanical or targeting error; faulty intelligence had incorrectly identified the building as a military target; or some other explanation is at play. In any case, despite the fact that Melania Trump was at the UN to discuss “education in conflict,” she made no explicit mention of the tragedy—nor of the military action against Iran more generally.

Iran’s ambassador to the UN, Amir Saeid Iravani, ruefully denounced the spectacle in advance as “deeply shameful and hypocritical.” He also denounced what he called the US- and Israeli-prosecuted war “against the United Nations charter,” and dismissed claims that the ongoing military action is a legitimate act of self-defence intended to pre-empt an Iranian attack on Western targets.

There is no question that the death of so many schoolchildren was a humanitarian tragedy. But of course, Iravani’s words were hypocritical in their own way. Tens of thousands of innocent protesters were killed in recent months by Iranian security forces unleashed by Khamenei in a ruthless bid to protect his faltering dictatorship. Since 1979, moreover, Iran’s theocracy has done much to oppress girls and women of all ages. Women who flout the mullahs’ regressive clothing diktats risk being rounded up by thugs, imprisoned, and even tortured. Just three years ago, the UN’s own Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights accused Iran of using poison gas to punish more than 1,200 schoolgirls (though none fatally), possibly as a means to discourage anti-hijab protests.