When Obama and Kerry inked the Iran nuclear deal without demanding the release of four American hostages as a condition of the deal, they were naturally questioned about that decision. Kerry was his usually smug, irritated self, implying that no one should press the issue publicly because some sort of greater deal was in the works to deal with the hostage issue
If the deal we're hearing about is the one he had in mind, it's another example of Obama and Kerry either being the world's worst negotiators, or - as the boss suggested on Sunday - simply giving away the store left and right because they really don't give a crap. Remember the trade of five Gitmo terrorists for deserter Bowe Bergdahl? Multiply the number of bad guys being released by nearly four, and you've got the deal that's apparently in the works. The only thing that might make this a little better is that the four Americans actually deserve their freedom.
But that doesn't change the fact that Obama and Kerry are about to give away what they absolutely did not have to:
He said the United States is holding people who are not guilty of any crime except working to get around sanctions the United States imposed to prevent corporations and individuals from doing business with Iran. The sanctions will start to be lifted soon as part of a landmark deal forged between Iran and six world powers, including the United States, to get Iran to curtail its nuclear program.
Those who broke the sanctions, Rouhani said, “tried to do something which they won’t be punished for now.”
Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif are in New York for the U.N. General Assembly. They are spending part of their time meeting with officials to discuss steps being taken as outlined in the nuclear agreement reached in July.
In several interviews Rouhani has granted recently, he has repeatedly raised the issue of a prisoner exchange — three Americans for 19 Iranians.
Now you can make the case that trying to get around economic sanctions is not tantamount to committing terrorism. But that misses two important points. One is that the whole purpose of the sanctions was to create a disincentive to Iran to keep supporting terrorism, or to keep developing nuclear weapons in violation of existing international agreements. For the Iranians to claim flouting the sanctions is no big deal is to say that the purpose of the sanctions was no big deal. Neither is true. The second point is that Iran is falsely drawing an equivalence between the two groups of people. Hostages like Jason Razaian are being held on completely trumped up charges, where as the 19 prisoners in the American criminal justice system got there by way of real crimes and real charges.
By the way, what's this business about only three American hostages in Iran? There are four. In additon to Rezaian, a reporter for the Washington Post, Americans Robert Levinson, Amir Hekmati and Pastor Saeed Abedini are also being held. They all need to be released.
And if Obama and Kerry hadn't been so desperate to get this nuclear deal finalized regardless of the costs, they could already be home. All they had to do was make the release of all four a condition of the deal. And if Iran refused, fine, no deal. That is the least they owed their own citizens who are being held by a terrorist regime on trumped up charges. Instead, Obama and Kerry were so desperate to help Iran get nuclear weapons, they sold out the four Americans and will now have to release 19 Iranian criminals to get our guys back.
Kerry will surely say that this is just how diplomacy works. No, this is how it works when conducted by completely inept diplomats, or by those who aren't really that concerned about the best interests of their own nation. It's not how it works when conducted by serious diplomats who actually know what they're doing.
Which, I guess, is why Kerry understands nothing about it. And neither does his boss.
