Behaving like the “strong horse” Osama bin Laden used to talk about, Iran:

…has named a member of the militant group that held 52 Americans hostage in Tehran for 444 days to be its next ambassador to the United Nations.

The Iranian government has applied for a U.S. visa for Hamid Aboutalebi, Iran’s former ambassador to Belgium and Italy, who was a member of the Muslim Students Following the Imam’s Line, a group of radical students that seized the U.S. embassy on Nov. 4, 1979. Imam was an honorific used for Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the Islamic Revolution. (via Kambiz Foroohar of Bloomberg)

Obama’s rapprochement policy toward Iran has worked out almost as well for him as ObamaCare, except that ObamaCare doesn’t threaten to use nuclear weapons.

Obama faces some tough political times ahead:

“There’ll not be any rapprochement with Iran until hostages are compensated for their torture,” said Tom Lankford, an Alexandria, Virginia-based lawyer who’s been trying to win compensation for the hostages since 2000. “It’s important that no state sponsor of terror can avoid paying for acts of terror.”

Anyone connected with the hostage-takers shouldn’t get a U.S. visa, said a former hostage and U.S. diplomat. He requested anonymity to avoid renewed attention.

But:

“Anyone can submit a visa application, and it will be evaluated as we do all visa applications, in accordance with our procedures,” she said. “We don’t speculate on what the outcome might be.”

The U.S. is obliged to grant entry visas to representatives of UN member-states in accordance with an agreement signed in 1947.

Hat tip: Clarice Feldman