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Before striking the Iran Nuke Deal July 14, 2015, 70-year-old Secretary of State John Kerry sweetened the pot, agreeing to release $400 million from undelivered arms sales Iran dating back before 1979 Islamic Revolution. Dating back to 1981, the State Department announced before signing the Iranian Nuke Deal that the U.S. Treasury would make good on the $400 million U.S. debt plus accrued interest amounting to $1.3 billion, for a total of $1.7 billion but only after four U.S. hostages were released. Accused of paying ransom for a hostage release, Kerry denied the quid pro quo, claiming it was a deal long in the works. “The United States does not pay ransoms,” Kerry told the press in Buenos Aires. Kerry denied that the arrangement had anything to do with \
finishing the July 14, 2015 Iranian Nuke Deal. Whatever Kerry says, it sure looks like the U.S. paid ransom to Iran.

Working feverishly to complete the Iran Nuke Deal, President Barack Obama and Kerry made enormous concessions to Iran’s 56-year-old chief negotiator Mohammad Javad Zarif who, through many fits, walked out of negotiations. With U.S. credibility on the line to produce a deal, the P5+1, including U.S., U.K, France, Russia, China and Germany all pressured Kerry into meeting Iranian demands. “We believe the agreement for the $400 million was paid in interest and settlement of the case actually saved the American taxpayers potentially billions of dollars,” said Kerry, justifying paying the $1.7 billion. Kerry ignores up the $1.3 billion interest payment to Iran to settle old debts. Whatever debts the U.S. claims against Iran for damage to U.S. property and personnel, it didn’t count to Kerry before cutting the deal. Kerry faces some tough questions before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Obama administration officials touted the Iranian Nuke Deal as delaying Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear bomb by some 10 years. But when you look at how much weapons grade uranium Iran stockpiles, not to mention its refusal to allow inspections to the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] at Iran’s secretive military sites, the July 14, 2015 agreement offers no real guarantees. Before Obama and Kerry inked the deal, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a joint session of Congress March 3, 2015 that the deal would not stop Iran from getting the bomb. “The deal will not prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons,” Netanyahu told the New York Post “It is a very bad deal. The greatest danger facing our world is the marriage of nuclear weapons with militant Islam,” said Netanyahu, not seeing how the July 14, 2015 deal with the P5+1 accomplished anything.

Kerry claims that paying Iran what they were owed actually saved U.S. taxpayers money. “There was no benefit to the United States of America to drag this out,” said Kerry, leaping to the conclusion that Iran would have walked out without the $1.7 billion payout. When the prisoner swap was completed Jan. 16, 2016 and the IAEA certified that Iran complied, the P5+1 gave $150 billion in sanctions relief, allowing Iran to once again sell oil into world markets. “It would have worked against the interests of our taxpayers and with the nuclear deal done, the prisoners released, the time was right to take advantage of the that and resolve the dispute in the way that it was resolved,” said Kerry, talking in circles. Kerry’s got a lot of explaining to do to convince skeptics that the $1.7 billion in principal-and-interest were paid to resolve an old settlement, not ransom for prisoners.

Obama and Hillary tout the Iranian nuke deal as one of their crowing achievements, despite the public outcry. Once Iran got the cash, Iranian officials have ripped the deal, claiming it did nothing but humiliate Iran’s Mullahs. Whether the world’s safer or not is anyone’s guess. If you believe anything the Iranians say, they’ve insisted all along they had no nuclear weapons programs. Yet the P5+1, led by Kerry, negotiated as if the world was coming to an end, believing the deal suspended for 10 years Iran’s weapons grade uranium program. GOP Presidential nominee Donald Trump has made the Iranian Nuke Deal a prime example of Obama-Clinton’s failed negotiating attempts. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton only hopes that she can keep the public focused of extraneous issues, like whether Trump insulted a “Gold Star” military family.

Releasing the $1.7 billion after the prisoner exchange Jan. 16 certainly raises eyebrows, especially about U.S. policy that it doesn’t pay ransoms. Talking about saving taxpayer money is the perfect excuse for paying out cash from a trust fund that’s held Iranian assets since 1979. With the billions lost to the Islamic Revolution, the U.S. hasn’t begun to get repaid for its losses during the Iranian Hostage Crisis. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei released the 54 U.S. hostages Jan. 20, 1981, the day President Ronald Reagan was sworn in. Khomenei released the hostages because he feared a more potent military response that never happened under former President Jimmy Carter. When you consider the billions Iran got for suspending a part of its nuclear enrichment program, it looks like the U.S. was badly out-negotiated. Kerry needs to explain how releasing $1.7 billion after freeing the U.S. prisoners was not ransom.