The State Department deserves commendation for halting New York City International Affairs Commissioner Ana María Archila’s attempt to engage with Amir-Saeid Iravani, Iran’s envoy to the United Nations, particularly during this tense period of conflict between the United States and Iran. This development, however, presents a significant challenge for Mayor Zohran Mamdani: Is he prepared to distance himself from the overtly anti-American elements within the Democratic Socialists of America?
In response to the situation, Mamdani has attempted to mitigate the backlash by claiming that Archila was not authorized to undertake such diplomatic efforts. However, his decision to neither dismiss her nor enforce any disciplinary measures indicates a reluctance to take decisive action.
Moreover, Mamdani has yet to plainly state just how profoundly wrong Archila’s actions were, which fuels further speculation.
This raises an important question: Does the mayor harbor a preference for the authoritarian regime in Tehran over the U.S. government?
It is possible to stand against US military interventions without aligning with a regime responsible for decades of hostility and bloodshed against Americans. Yet, certain members of the Democratic Socialists of America openly support the Islamic Republic, seemingly because of its mutual disdain for the United States.
DSA factions make apologies not just for Hamas’ atrocities against innocent Israelis, but for last year’s murder of two Jews outside the Capital Jewish Museum in DC, for Russia’s war on Ukraine and for crimes against humanity committed by the Chinese Communist Party and the lunatics who rule North Korea.
As Jonah Goldberg notes in an excellent X essay, the “DSA has an expressly no-enemies-to-the-left approach”; other members are supposed to stay silent even when its affiliates call for the overthrow of the Constitution and US democracy itself.
Is the mayor just a pretty face covering for these radicals, or does he have principles that oppose this profound anti-Americanism?
If so, he needs to start saying so, and to purge the extremists he’s hired to help run New York City.
Archila, for one, has brazenly hijacked the Office of International Affairs, turning it into a puppet agency for the DSA’s internationalist agenda.
This is confirmed by an internal OIA memo — uncovered by City Journal — mandating that diplomatic outreach be “focused . . . on deepening relations with foreign leaders who share Mamdani’s worldview” — one aligned with the DSA.
Traditionally, the office sought to cultivate global sister city relationships, exchange best practices, attract foreign business and support the city’s relations with the diplomatic community (including collecting the occasional parking fines from scofflaw diplomats).
Reaching out to Iran and to the Maduro regime that’s devastated Venezuela, as Archila also tried to do, is a clean different thing, and a vile one.
If the mayor didn’t authorize or endorse Archila’s plan to sit down with Iran’s UN rep, he should fire her.
More: He needs to sit down with his peeps and get every anti-American radical out of his administration.
Mamdani has quietly broken with the DSA on some points, most notably by keeping Jessica Tisch in charge of the NYPD, and largely letting her run policing as she deems fit.
Now that Archila’s put the question on the table, he’s obliged to go beyond pragmatism to principle . . . unless he hates America, too.
Your move, Mr. Mayor.