In a vote this week, U.N. member nations elected the Islamic Republic of Iran as a vice president of a conference designed to review the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The decision, coming less than a year after the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog officially found Iran out of compliance with its oversight, provoked reactions ranging from incredulity to outrage.

After the 11th NPT review conference elected officers this week, conference chair Do Hung Viet, Vietnam’s U.N. ambassador, said that Iran was selected as a vice president by “the group of non-aligned and other states.” While the conference’s selection process is opaque, it likely involves positions distributed out to achieve regional and political balance.

The group of “non-aligned” states appears to be a reference to the “Non-Aligned Movement,” which boasts 121 member states and 18 with observer status covering all of Africa, South America, Central America, and the Caribbean, the bulk of Asia, and a smattering of Eastern Europe.

Iran’s role as vice president is less powerful than it sounds. According to the rules developed by the Preparatory Committee, the “2026 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons” will elect 34 vice presidents. These vice presidents serve on a 40-member-strong General Committee and are eligible to fulfill the chairman-like duties of the president if the president is absent.

Still, Iran’s recent nuclear misbehavior should place it at the bottom of the roster. In June 2025, the 35-nation board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) voted 19-3 (with 11 abstentions and two nations not voting) to approve a resolution finding Iran in non-compliance with its obligations under the NPT.

Effective in 1970, the NPT allows only five countries in the world to have nuclear weapons — the U.S., the U.K., France, Russia, and China. Only four countries in the world have never joined the NPT: India, Pakistan, Israel, and South Sudan. India and Pakistan have declared nuclear arsenals, Israel maintains a suspected nuclear arsenal, and South Sudan is too new (independent in 2011) and too poor (with an annual GDP under $10 billion, less than the cost of a single nuclear reactor) for the treaty to be relevant. North Korea withdrew from the NPT when it acquired nuclear weapons. But every other country is party to the NPT, and no other country has obtained nuclear weapons, even though a few got close.

The vote to find Iran in non-compliance with the NPT followed two reports by IAEA technicians in May 2025. One revealed that Iran was refusing to cooperate with the IAEA’s attempts at oversight. The other reported that the Iranian regime had more than doubled its stockpile of enriched uranium since August 2024 and now had enough enriched uranium for 10 nuclear weapons. No other nation in the world has enriched uranium to 60% for peaceful purposes, and only a short, technical step separates uranium enriched to 60% from weapons-grade uranium, which is enriched to 90%.

On September 19, 2025, the U.N. Security Council reimposed sanctions on Iran’s nuclear program, weapons systems, and overseas assets, and official travel — sanctions that had been suspended as part of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as President Obama’s Iran nuclear deal. On September 29, the European Union voted to reimpose its own sanctions as well.

Iran responded defiantly to these international penalties. It announced plans to increase its uranium enrichment, and to open a third enrichment facility, which it had already secretly built. It even threatened to withdraw from the NPT treaty altogether.

Ironically, even the expressed preferences of the Non-Aligned States should caution the group against a choice of Iran. At the 10th NPT review conference (scheduled for 2020 but held in 2022), a joint statement from the group “strongly support[ed] the establishment of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East.” Aside from Israel, the Iranian regime is the only Middle Eastern power actively pursuing a nuclear weapon, despite its protestations to the contrary.

The choice of Iran does have precedent. At the 10th NPT review conference, in which 151 member nations participated, Iran was elected as one of 30 vice presidents, all of which were elected unanimously. At the time, Iran was substantially in non-compliance with the IAEA, maintaining stockpiles of enriched uranium and taking measures to evade oversight. But it was not officially found in non-compliance until 2025.

At the 11th NPT review conference this week, however, Iran’s election as vice president was not unanimously approved. The United States of America objected, with U.S. Bureau of ?Arms Control and Nonproliferation assistant secretary Christopher Yeaw declaring that the election of Iran was an “affront” to the NPT, “beyond shameful, and an embarrassment to the credibility of this conference.” He argued that “Iran has long demonstrated its contempt for the non-proliferation commitments of the NPT.”

The U.S. was joined in opposition by the U.K., France, and Germany, who also co-sponsored the IAEA resolution holding Iran in non-compliance, as well as Australia.

Notably, the U.S. was also joined in opposition by the United Arab Emirates, the only non-Western, Arab, and Middle Eastern country to object. Iran’s “unlawful and brutal actions since 28 February have been in direct contrast to the aims and spirit of this review conference,” argued the representative from the UAE, which has borne the brunt of Iran’s missile and drone attacks on its neighbors, despite taking no offensive steps toward Iran. “If a state party can disregard its obligations, undermine verification, destabilize its region, threaten international waterways, and still be elevated to a leadership position in this process, then we must ask what message this conference is sending.”

What a message indeed.

Alas, the U.N. is not known for keeping foxes out of the henhouse. Just weeks ago, on April 13, the U.N.’s 54-member Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) nominated Iran to the U.N.’s Committee for Program and Coordination, which shapes policy on women’s rights, disarmament, and counterterrorism. Only the U.S. objected to that nomination. Human rights-abusing countries like Iran, Russia, China, North Korea, and Cuba have enjoyed positions overseeing human rights policies for years.