Latest Hostage Ransom Scheme Cements Biden’s Legacy of Leaving Men Behind

The Biden administration disputes that its multiparty agreement to enable Iran to access $6 billion in frozen funds in exchange for the release of Iranian-American hostages is not a ransom since that money technically belongs to Iran anyway. It is the same argument administration officials made nearly a decade ago when, working for President Barack Obama, they agreed to transfer more than $1 billion into Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps coffers.

While political partisans might refine spin and many Washington journalists accept the talking points, what matters is how Tehran perceives it. There is little doubt: Just as in 2016, Iranian officials see the payments as ransom.

The tragedy of today’s ransom scheme is that it was entirely predictable, the direct result of incentivizing hostage-taking. When radical Iranian students stormed the American embassy in November 1979, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini made maximalist demands. At first President Jimmy Carter resisted, but then, eager to resolve the crisis, he agreed to the Algiers Accords that pumped gold bullion into Iran’s cash-strapped economy and further lifted most trade sanctions. The result? Khomeini pumped that money into the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which used it to fund Iran’s military, support its terror campaign, and organize what would become Hezbollah.

In 1983, Hezbollah not only blew up the U.S. embassy and barracks for U.S. peacekeepers, but it and other Iranian proxies also began a kidnapping campaign that ultimately netted two dozen Americans. While President Ronald Reagan had once criticized Carter for negotiating under fire, he turned around and emulated Carter. The result was a disaster. True, after trading arms for hostages, Hezbollah took a 15-month pause on kidnapping Americans, but after Reagan delivered the last promised shipment of arms, the group seized three Americans in the course of weeks.

Obama’s deals simply repeated the pattern. Rather than put Iran on the path of responsibility, his ransom reinforced and enabled its rogue behavior. Realism is not an excuse: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s ability to secure Xiyue Wang’s release absent any payment simply shows that standing up to blackmail can work.

The only difference between the hostage ransoms then and now is that, under Carter and Reagan, most of the hostages were diplomats, U.S. government employees, or academics. Today, many hostages are Iranian-Americans who ran interference for the Iranian government and criticized sanctions while trying to make their fortunes, only to run afoul of the Revolutionary Guards’ business interests . To pay ransoms for these businessmen far in excess of those paid to release Americans who were working on behalf of the United States adds insult to injury.

Questionable judgment, however, does not end there. While Obama flooded Iran’s coffers with cash, he left an American behind. Former FBI agent Bob Levinson died in Iranian captivity, though it is unclear when. Obama’s team saw his case as an inconvenience and, even though Iran was desperate for cash, the White House did not make the deal contingent on his return.

Today, President Joe Biden repeats the tragedy. While his officials applaud themselves for the release of five hostages, they remain silent about Jamshid “Jimmy” Sharmahd, who has been a hostage for three years. Sharmahd should be the priority: He did not travel voluntarily to Iran, but rather Iranian agents upset about his vocal opposition to the regime apparently kidnapped him while he was in transit in the United Arab Emirates. To ignore his case is to signal to Iran that it is open season on Americans anywhere in the world. Iran now learns the White House will leave Americans behind. Not only can hostage-taking bring financial windfalls, but being permitted to keep hostages also allows Iran to continue its humiliation of America.

Biden’s team has now left American hostages behind in Iran at least twice, and it left thousands of Afghans working alongside Americans to the Taliban’s mercy despite promises to relocate them to the United States. Biden may spin, but the truth is clear. Biden sees Americans’ freedom as an inconvenience as he succumbs to Iranian extortion.