Trump and Iran:
Yet Another Hostage Crisis
By Robin Wright
Yet Another Hostage Crisis
By Robin Wright
Short of last-minute diplomacy, Donald Trump will
inherit another hostage crisis with Iran on Inauguration Day—thirty-five years
after the first hostage drama at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran ended, as Ronald
Reagan was sworn in, and exactly one year after the Obama Administration’s swap
to free five more Americans. The Islamic Republic has quietly arrested more
Americans since the nuclear deal went into effect, in January, 2016, which
coincided with a separate U.S. payment of $1.7 billion, transferred in three
planeloads of cash, to settle a legal case from the Shah’s era. The deals were
designed to curtail Tehran’s cyclical seizure of Americans, which had been a
problem for both Bush Administrations, too.
Only
they didn’t. At least six Americans and two green-card holders are now
imprisoned or have disappeared in the Islamic Republic. One is now the
longest-held civilian hostage in U.S. history. An undisclosed number have not
been publicly identified.
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