The UN’s appeasement of Iran is a symbol of its decline and decay 
By Nile Gardiner
August 23rd, 2012
Telegraph 
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/nilegardiner/100177829/the-uns-appeasement-of-iran-is-a-symbol-of-its-decline-and-decay/
The reputation of the United Nations has hit new lows in the past decade – the Oil for Food debacle, the peacekeeping scandal in the Congo, the downfall of the dismal Commission on Human Rights (now the increasingly discredited Human Rights Council) – the list is endless. The UN has become a byword for corruption, mismanagement and the appeasement of dictatorial regimes. Following in this rich tradition, the United Nations has decided to send Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to attend the summit of the Nonaligned Movement in Tehran next week, where he will “meet with senior Iranian leaders, including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.” http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/23/world/middleeast/ban-ki-moon-will-attend-iran-summit-over-american-and-israeli-objections.html?pagewanted=all According toThe New York Times:
Efforts led by the United States and Israel to isolate Iran suffered a setback on Wednesday when the United Nations announced that Ban Ki-moon, the secretary general, would join officials from 120 countries in Tehran next week for a summit meeting that Iran has trumpeted as a vindication of its defiance and enduring importance in world affairs.
Mr Ban’s decision to attend the meeting of the Nonaligned Movement, announced by his spokesman, Martin Nesirky, came despite objections from both the Americans and Israelis, including a phone call from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel.
The UN Secretary General is sending completely the wrong signal by hobnobbing with the leadership of a barbaric rogue regime that is hell-bent on acquiring nuclear weapons while threatening to wipe an entire nation off the map. It is also a tyranny that is actively preparing to escalate terrorist attacks against Western targets. As The Telegraph’s Con Coughlin http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/9490878/Irans-supreme-leader-orders-fresh-terror-attacks-on-West.html recently reported, “Iran's Supreme Leader has ordered the country's Revolutionary Guards to intensify its campaign of terror attacks against the West and its allies in retaliation for supporting the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria.”
Mr. Ban will also likely be rubbing shoulders with representatives from North Korea and Sudan, as well as a host of other tyrannical governments. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-19352571 The BBC has announcedthat Kim Yong-nam, North Korea’s head of parliament, will be attending the Nonaligned Movement Summit.
Ban Ki-moon’s reckless move will further reinforce the image of a declining world body that actively undercuts American interests on several fronts and grovels to human rights abusers and state sponsors of terrorism. It will undoubtedly strengthen calls on Capitol Hill for significant cuts in US funding for the United Nations. Washington currently gives http://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/2012/pdf/bg2672.pdf more than $7.6 billion a year to the UN system, a huge sum of money in an age of austerity to pay for a bloated bureaucracy thoroughly lacking in accountability and oversight. It is time for the United States to hold the UN to account by significantly reducing funding for the organisation, and increasing the level of Congressional oversight. American taxpayers deserve value for money from the UN, and an expectation that their contributions will be used to advance the cause of freedom rather than undermine it.