Clearly you “don’t get it”. The funds are frozen Iranian assets from 1981 that are being released in accordance with the terms of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which you haven’t read a word of and whose context and underlying concepts you can’t be bothered to learn the rudimentary basics of.
Right, and those very funds sat there untouched for 35 years, and just so happened to finally be transferred on the very same day that 4 Americans were released.
That’s some coincidence there Biz.
^That is how international economic sanctions typically work. Correlation does not imply causation.
Then why use an unmarked plane with pallets of cash and not share this transaction with the public ? There should be no reason to hide anything if it’s on the up and up.
3 Likes
Correlation always implied causation, otherwise it’s just coincidence, which this is not.
Ah, yet another brilliant Carter legacy we still have yet to shake and may never in fact shake.
That conciliatory tone has always worked so well throughout history, I wonder why it didn’t work out this time?
Listen to what the hostage says in this video video.foxnews.com
Interesting what the hostage says. That the Iranians have to wait on another plane to land before they can take off??
I know you guys hate fox news and all, but the hostage says what he says. And we know the money got there that day,
In what world would anyone want $400 million delivered in cash ? We have this super snazzy thing called the internet, where it can be wired right into your account. That is, unless you plan to spend it in shady ways.
“The reason cash was exchanged is because we don’t have banking with Iran,” he said. “Which is part of the pressure we could apply to them, so they would close down a bunch of facilities that, as I remember, two years ago, three years ago, five years ago, was people’s top fear and priority, that we make sure Iran doesn’t have breakout nuclear capacity. They don’t. This worked.”
So we don’t bank with Iran, so we had to send them cash.
They can enrich uranium, but they can’t manage a bank account ? Right. Good luck with that.
LOL!
Not exactly. By law, American banks cannot deal with Iranian banks and America cannot send American Dollars, and Iran will not accept American Dollars. So it had to be cash money…
Quite frankly, why we had not absorbed that money in to our own economy and told Iran to fuck off years ago is beyond me. After all Iran did trespass in to sovereign U.S. territory and detained 52 hostages for 444 days. Reagan should have used that money to pay down the debt. Then there would have been no 1.7 billion in frozen assets. There would have been a $1.7 billion dollar pay-off for the U.S. not leveling Tehran for what most would have considered an act of war.
They could have sent Euros, problem solved. This whole thing stinks of utter horseshit.
1 Like
Er, no. In Iran, dollar is the tolerated secondary currency. Everything is priced in dollars, even for internal purposes from the price of a car to common household items.
Also, as my employer, a large multinational corporation can attest, the Iranian companies and their government have a huge problem finding even half reputable banks to process their payments. Wire transfers are extremely difficult, if not impossible.
So a simple issued invoice can cause huge headaches for both parties.
I know that some of my colleagues attending a meeting in Tehran were offered a briefcase of cash for payment of an received invoice, as Iranian companies try to use cash as much as possible as it is practically their only option.
Maybe in the black market and perhaps the tourism industry. The US government is not allowed to pay Iran in dollars for any reason. Not as sure as to whether or not the government of Iran is allowed to receive in dollars.
But the smelliness of the situation is not to be ignored.
There is definitely smoke, whether or not there is fire remains to be seen.
A good reporter, a proper investigative reporter with some journalistic integrity can help us find out.
It’s one thing if a candidate has illegal email. It’s a whole other if the president is involved in a ransom for hostages situation.
The nuke deal cannot trump the law and if it did, that can end up being a big deal.
The hostages could have been released as a condition of the deal but not for money. Paying ransoms are illegal.
I would imagine Iran has 400 million reasons how to figure out the issues to get that money.
Also, if one wanted to make really sure this didn’t look like ransom, the 4 Americans could have been released not on the same day as this payment.
As the international relations scholar Dan Drezner summarizes:
"1 - Remember, the money that was transferred was always Iran’s money. It’s just that the United States seized Iran’a assets when Iran seized the U.S. Embassy in 1979. Always remember — this is Iran’s money being given back to Iran.
2 - By all accounts the United States was going to lose an international legal tribunal ruling on the dispute. The payment prevented having to pay an even bigger penalty (in terms of interest on the $400 million held over 35 years).
3 - The transfer was not kept secret, but announced in January when the exchange took place. The new information in the WSJ stories are that (a) the transfer was in pallets of cash and (b) DOJ officials were queasy about the optics . . .
The only new information from this week about these exchanges with Iran is about the optics."
Maybe, but this looks bad.
But then one could say “How can you trust this coming from Iran?”
And one could retort, “We trusted them with a nuclear deal. Why are they untrustworthy here?”
Again, the JCPOA is underpinned by “distrust and verify”. One can’t cogently characterize the most extensive and intrusive arms control and inspections regime in history as guided by “trust”.
As far as the $400 million is concerned, the optics are certainly bad. The DOJ was and is concerned with the transfer, as the histrionic conservative freak out and pseudo victory lap by Iranian hardliners was predictable. The optics are not reality, and the Obama administration is right to come out forcefully against those trying to score political points at their country’s expense. Politically and diplomatically, it’s the right move.
Rather it’s underpinned by “We got screwed”. The only people verifying right now are the Iranians verifying they got their money before they released any hostages. Hostages they should not have had in the first place.
I’m going to be frank, Pat. Your numerous fallacious posts on the issue lead any informed observer to conclude that you haven’t read the JCPOA (despite your claims that you have).
You have many whoppers, but the most salient in my mind is your claim that Iran would be able to legally pursue nuclear weapons 15 years into the agreement. Now, let’s assume you haven’t studied the 1968 Treaty of the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), the foundation of the non-proliferation regime and required reading for anyone who seeks to have a 101 understand of relevant arms control agreements. The JCPOA text makes ubambiguous and multiple references to the binding obligations of the NPT that legally bar Iran, now and forever, from pursuing atomic arms. You a) didn’t read the agreement (which is my guess, given its 177 page length) or b) read the agreement and nonetheless were unable to comprehend its implications given your many egregious claims regarding the nuclear deal.
Your claims might fly by unmolested at a BBQ discussion of geopolitics, but I’ve already bagged my limit. It’s the foreign policy discussion equivalent of dove hunting in Argentina.