Winning the Release of the Unjustly Imprisoned

Both President Donald Trump’s supporters and detractors credit his approach with helping to win the release of Egyptian-American Aya Hijazi, an NGO worker imprisoned in Egypt for three years on meritless charges. The Washington Post explained:

An Egyptian American charity worker who was imprisoned in Cairo for three years and became the global face of Egypt’s brutal crackdown on civil society returned home to the United States late Thursday after the Trump administration quietly negotiated her release. President Trump and his aides worked for several weeks with Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi to secure the freedom of Aya Hijazi, 30, a U.S. citizen, as well as her husband, Mohamed Hassanein, who is Egyptian, and four other humanitarian workers.

The logic behind the article goes like this: Whereas President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry sought to bash Egypt, unsuccessfully seeking to compel the release of an unjustly imprisoned American with sanctions, Trump was wise to establish a positive working relationship with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. It was the quiet diplomacy coupled with symbolic acts such as welcoming Sisi to the White House, which led the Egyptian leader to change his mind.

Here’s the problem with that logic: By extending it slightly, then it becomes wise for President Obama to ransom U.S. hostages in Iran or for Presidents Clinton and Bush to offer concessions to North Korea to compel the release American prisoners there. It is crucial not to create a precedent by which any country expects rewards for the arrest of Americans it should never have arrested in the first place.

There is also evidence that contradicts the evolving narrative. The State Department constantly tells families of victims to maintain their silence in order to allow quiet diplomacy to work. This has not worked in the case of Bob Levinson, detained in Iran and still held despite Obama and Kerry’s ransom payment. Conversely, the Bush administration’s withholding of over $100 million in aid and assistance helped compel former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to release Saad Eddin Ibrahim, and Egyptian-American sociologist who his regime had detained on spurious charges.

The simple fact is this: Transitions provide a face-saving opportunity to resolve problems if not reboot relations. American hostages returned from Iran on the day of Ronald Reagan’s swearing in because the transition provided an excuse to do so. In the case of Hijazi, her detention was a mistake. There was no evidence to support the charges leveled against her. Egypt can say the dismissal of her case was proof that its judicial system works but, even had she been convicted, Sisi might have pardoned her. The key is not, depending on the political party, Trump’s wisdom and Obama’s idiocy or the reverse. Trump seized an opportunity that the transition enabled. Sometimes, it’s as simple as that.