Iran: Go nuclear! Go jewelry! Go perfume! A simple slap by the US captures the hypocrisy
One would think that the weight bearing down on Iranian diplomats at the UNwould be the snapback sanctions that now squeeze the country.
One would be wrong.
Of far weightier concern is the US snapback against Iran at Costco and Sam’s Club.
While the people at home in Iran suffer water shortages, energy shortages and job losses, not to mention government crackdowns on free expression and free association, the Iranian people’s diplomats in New York City also suffer greviously.
Their luxury sources have dried up.
Henceforth, whence their furs and jewelry, the anguished diplomats wonder?
Whence their pearls and precious metals?
Whence their tobacco and luxury cars?
No more are the likes of Costco, Sam’s Club and BJ’s Wholesale Club available to Iranian diplomats posted to the UN or elsewhere in the US. Alas, the easy and very cheap (compared to prices in Iran) availability of large quantities of luxury goods is no more. Amid Iranian diplomats’ harsh rhetoric, laced with the usual Jew hatred, a deeper concern prowls underfoot: the State Dept.’s Office of Foreign Missions.
The office now requires US government approval for diplomats’ memberships in wholesale club stores. The list of verboten “luxury goods” is specifically targeted against Iranian diplomats. The list is long, long indeed. No longer available to Iranian diplomats are these items, reports AP:
• electronics and appliances
• recreational sports articles
• musical instruments
• watches
• leather apparel and clothing accessories
• silk apparel and clothing accessories
• works of art
• antiques
• carpets and rugs
• tapestries
• footwear
• fur skins and artificial furs
• handbags and wallets
• fountain pens
• cosmetics
• perfumes and toilet waters
• pearls, gems, precious and semi-precious stones or jewelry containing them
• precious metals
• cigarettes and cigars
• wine, spirits and beer.
Whew! An Iranian diplomat’s nightmare.
Not finished, however.
Also requiring US government permission is an Iranian’s purchase of any vehicle valued at more than $60,000, says Clifton Seagroves, the head of the Office of Foreign Missions (again, thank you, AP, for these details).
In a statement attributed only to the State Dept., the rationale for the anti-Iran regulations is set forth:
“We will not allow the Iranian regime to allow its clerical elites to have a shopping spree in New York while the Iranian people endure poverty, rumbling infrastructure, and dire shortages of water and electricity.”
And so, the hopscotch is on for Iran’s diplomats.
They must now dash out of the UN chamber when the prime minister speaks because their time is clipped. They must find some time to huddle with fellow Israel-boycotters in Europe and the Arab world, to figure out alternative sources for the critical luxury items. Soon enough, it comes time to rush to the speechwriters to pick up latest anti-Israel diatribe, only to be waylaid again, huddling again, to try to end-run the dire impositions of the State Dept., which no doubt were inspired by the Zionist entity.
Indeed, huddling and huddling becomes the new preoccupation of all Iranian diplomats at the UN to thwart the evils of the infidels in the Trump regime.
Iran’s diplomats are wondering how things could have gone so wrong so quickly after their inspiring victories in the glorious 12-day war against Israel and the US only a few months ago.
© IJN 2025
