You've heard of the Geneva Convention, right? Both the U.S. and Iran are signatories to it (unlike, say, Al Qaeda or ISIS), and signatories agree among other things that when they detain people from other nations for border incursions, they will not release photos or other images of them for the purpose of humiliating them.
So surely Iran, considering the favorable treatment it's received of late from the United States, wouldn't treat U.S. sailors that way - especially in a situation that resulted from a mere no-harm-no-foul mistake. And especially after John Kerry practically acted as their lawyer in the recentl completed nuclear negotiations.
Right?
Right?
Ha.
Suckers:
The Obama Administration's response to all this, by the way? We apologize for the incursion and thank Iran for not holding the 10 sailors longer than a day. Oh, and not a word about it in the State of the Union address, which I'm sure is another case of Kerry being terrified to do anything that might set off the people who are already set off, and have already taken U.S. hostages (not to mention the four who have already been there for quite some time now).
If they were to say anything about it at all, Obama and Kerry would probably argue that because they didn't make angry public pronouncements they were able to use diplomacy to get the sailors out of there within a day, and furthermore that their favorable stance toward Iran of late gave them leverage to make the release happen quickly.
There are a couple of problems with that argument, though. First, honorable friends you can trust don't release your hostages within a day, because they don't take your people hostage in the first place. Second, everyone knows the photos and the videos - especially with compelled "apologies" like this one - are designed to humiliate and be used as propaganda, which is why there are strict rules against it in the Geneva Convention.
But wait. Iran violate an agreement it signed? Why, you don't suppose they would violate other agreements, do you? Like the one that says they're not supposed to conduct certain kinds of missile tests? Or the one that says they're not supposed to develop nuclear weapons?
Why would Iran concern itself with any of these agreements when all that happens when they break them is that the U.S. issues apologies and declines to impose any sanctions?
Remember during Obama's first inaugural address, when he was basking in the public's widespread rejection of the more hawkish Bush foreign policy, and he said he intended to offer an outstretched hand instead of a fist? We've seen the sort of thing that hand's been doing for the past seven years. I'd say it's time to bring back the fist.
You've heard of the Geneva Convention, right? Both the U.S. and Iran are signatories to it (unlike, say, Al Qaeda or ISIS), and signatories agree among other things that when they detain people from other nations for border incursions, they will not release photos or other images of them for the purpose of humiliating them.
