I think Neda would have wanted it this way, don’t you?

Without fanfare, the United Nations this week elected Iran to its Commission on the Status of Women, handing a four-year seat on the influential human rights body to a theocratic state in which stoning is enshrined in law and lashings are required for women judged “immodest.”

Just days after Iran abandoned a high-profile bid for a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council, it began a covert campaign to claim a seat on the Commission on the Status of Women, which is “dedicated exclusively to gender equality and advancement of women,” according to its website.

This is the same group whose Human Rights Council includes luminaries like China and Saudi Arabia. See now why Ahmadinejad always includes a passage in his annual speech about expanding the number of permanent members in the Security Council or giving more power to the General Assembly? In the interest of “equality,” there’s no laugh test for exerting influence at the UN. The task for its more cretinous members is simply to extend that principle to the real levers of power. Because Iran’s all about equality, you see.

Go have a look at what the newest defender of international women’s rights is up to these days.

Update: Jennifer Rubin has a question.

The U.S. couldn’t muster a word of opposition — not even call for a vote. That would be because . . . why? Because our policy is not to confront and challenge the brutal regime for which rape and discrimination are institutionalized policies. No, rather, we are in the business of trying to ingratiate ourselves, and making the U.S. as inoffensive as possible to the world’s thugocracies.