U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry talks to the media after a meeting with Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir at the State Department in Washington July 16, 2015. Reuters/Yuri Gripas
Reuters: Kerry: 'very, very hopeful' Iran will release detained Americans
Secretary of State John Kerry said on Friday he raised the topic of detained Americans at every meeting he held with Iranians during the final weeks of nuclear negotiations and said he is hopeful Tehran would release them.
The Obama administration has faced criticism for not securing the Americans' release as part of the landmark deal reached on Tuesday in Vienna to curb Iran's nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.
There are three Americans known to be detained by Iran.
In an interview with MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Kerry defended his team's efforts to get them freed, including during the final round of negotiations that began on June 27.
Update: Kerry: Captive Americans raised at all meetings with Iran -- AP
WNU Editor: Iran made sure that they got their officials taken off the U.S. sanctions list .... Top Iranian General Accused Of Killing Hundreds Of Americans Will Benefit From Yesterday's Iranian Nuclear Deal .... but I guess for the U.S. administration these hostages were only important to bring up .... but not important enough to push hard in making sure that they were released.
3 comments:
While I'm very, very sorry these people were not released, unlike a number of talking head pundits I was never under any delusion that America could or would get any kind of a good deal here. If we liken this to a poker game, Iran holds/held all the cards. The US essentially had nothing here.
Barack Obama had once stated that he had 99% of the world's backing on this. While the number is technically inaccurate since aggressively Sunni Arabs make up about 10% of earth's population, the US still would have faced 90% or more opposition to a deal with Iran. The bottom line is and always was that sanctions and any weapons embargoes against Iran were going to be lifted in full sooner rather than later and Iran would acquire nuclear weapons. This was going to happen no matter what America does or did. In other words this was going to happen deal or no deal.
Additionally Russia and China are the preeminent military powers of our time and the gap between us and them is only likely to get bigger in coming years. Combine this together and the Iranians were in an excellent position to get their people released. America was simply in no position to bargain effectively.
If I were POTUS, I'd have dropped the delusion that we were somehow going to keep sanctions in place against Iran, keep in place any kind of weapons embargo against Iran (what a joke this embargo was as Iran has still managed to build a very formidable military), or that we had any chance of preventing them from developing nuclear weapons should they choose to and plan accordingly. In this type of situation, it's best not to waste time, energy, and resources on fruitless negotiations. The same would apply to any "allies" we have. Best for them not to operate on "hope" but on reality and plan accordingly.
With that said, if one MUST pursue a policy of negotiations, it'd be best to negotiate with Russia Iran's chief ally and the world's strongest military power. As part of a negotiated settlement, the US would agree to withdraw all support from Ukraine and other former Soviet and Eastern Bloc countries. In exchange, Russia would withdraw their support from Iran or at least limit it to non military support and would act to assist us in making certain Iran does not develop nuclear weapons. While there are flaws to this approach and whether it would work is uncertain and parts of it border on unpalatable, it would seem a better approach than the one we are currently undertaking.
Essentially in the case of the hostages, "hope" is all they have as the US had nothing really to offer in terms of negotiations that would entice Iran to want to release the hostages. Essentially the US went into the negotiations with an extremely bad "hand." Iran had a very good "hand." As such and as one would expect, Iran came out ahead. Unlike some I never had any delusions about how this would have come out. We did not have a good "hand" and it showed.
As I understand it, much of the sanctions relief is going to happen over time. IF we can ensure that all sides stick to this AND we can trust our "allies" to insist us with inspections and to be forthcoming with us on this, this may be allow us some breathing space to prepare, Unfortunately I'm under no delusion that "if" or "and" will occur.
Since we have very little time and we've wasted time and lost much dignity on fruitless negotiations, I'd suggest we start preparing for the inevitable. Obvious areas to begin are upgrades and expansion to the nuclear arsenal, enhanced border security, redeployment of the US military to positions off our coasts and along our borders that make more sense for our national security, being ready for the inevitable loss of the US dollar as world reserve currency, and working on enhanced missile defense.
TPTB in Iran had the Iranian general's back
Kerry and Obama did not have the hostages's back.
From what I read morality is partially genetic and you need treating others fairly or morally depends, if they are in your in group or the out group.
Judging from this 'loose' standard the Iranians are moral. At least to one another.
Kerry and Obama does not have America's back. We are not par to their in group. We are ______. Maybe 30% to 50% of America is part of Obama's in group. Sme of them might be rent-a-mob, sheeple or epsilons, but they are part of his group. For the rest of us there is extreme shearing, re-education or Final Solution.
Obama should have been impeached long ago.
"Obama should have been impeached long ago." I agree as I agree with the rest of your analysis. Frankly anyone else who did what he has done would have been. He only gets to not be impeached because he is African American and the Islamic name is also extremely helpful.
Americans today are NOT responsible for slavery nor for racism that occurred in the past. I think much of the nation especially the population of European descent needs collective therapy to deal with guilt issues. Furthermore the same thing applies to the Japanese protestors who are protesting Japan's change in military posture. Japanese today are not guilty of WW2. It's past time to purge the guilt issues as well. (Another thread.)
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