Kudos to the State Department for putting the kibosh on city International Affairs Commissioner Ana María Archila’s bid to meet with Amir-Saeid Iravani, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, even as America and Iran are at war — but the affair poses a challenge to Mayor Zohran Mamdani: Does he have the grit to break with the openly anti-American factions of the Democratic Socialists of America?

Mamdani’s tried to downplay the disgraceful episode, insisting Archila had no clearance to do such outreach, yet he’s not firing her or imposing any discipline.

Nor even saying outright how very wrong she was.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced the “click to cancel” policy to the media on July 10, 2026, at the Asser Levy Recreation Center in Manhattan, NY. James Messerschmidt for the NY Post

Which raises the question of whether he prefers the theocratic regime in Tehran to the United States government.

You can oppose the US war without embracing the monsters with decades of American blood on their hands, but some DSAers do side with the Islamic Republic, because it hates the United States: They’ve said as much, openly.

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.

Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani of Iran attends a Security Council meeting on the situation in the Middle East requested by the Kingdom of Bahrain at UN Headquarters in New York, NY on July 2, 2026. Lev Radin/ZUMA / SplashNews.com

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. 

Ana Maria Archila speaks during the Global Progressive Mobilisation at Fira Barcelona on April 18, 2026 in Barcelona, Spain Getty Images

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.