There are jokes, and then there is whatever the United Nations has just done.

The Islamic Republic of Iran – a regime that treats women as a sort of troublesome sub‑species, that harvests political prisoners like a cash crop, that hangs gay men from cranes and arms terrorists from Beirut to Sana’a – has been nominated to a U.N. committee that will help shape policy on women’s rights, human rights, disarmament and terrorism prevention.

If satire weren’t already dead, this would have killed it.

One imagines the scene in some anonymous conference room on the East River. Delegates in grey suits, eyes glazed from years of drafting resolutions no one will read, politely nod as the Islamic Republic is put forward to opine on the very subjects it has spent four decades violating with almost artisanal dedication. Somewhere, Kafka and Orwell look at one another, shrug, and order another round.

Let us dwell for a moment on the sheer, operatic absurdity of it.

On women’s rights: Iran is a country where a young woman, Mahsa Amini, can be beaten to death for the crime of insufficient hair concealment, where schoolgirls are poisoned for daring to remove headscarves, where the “morality police” patrol the streets as if they were animal control and half the population a species to be managed. This is the state now invited to contribute to the global conversation on gender equality. It is a bit like asking Jack the Ripper to sit on the board of a women’s shelter.

On human rights: The Islamic Republic has turned the abuse of its citizens into a system of government. Torture is not an aberration but a technique. Trials are not hearings but theatre. Journalists, lawyers, artists and students are jailed, flogged, disappeared. Minorities – Kurds, Baluchis, Baháʼís, Jews – are treated as internal enemies, laboratory subjects for the regime’s paranoia. Who better, then, to help the U.N. shape its priorities on human dignity and the rule of law? Perhaps they can offer a breakout session on efficient repression: “From Arrest to Confession in 24 Hours or Less.”

On disarmament: Iran’s record is one long love........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)