Iran has apparently agreed to release five American hostages from prison in return for releasing several Iranians in American prisons and $6 billion in cash.
The Americans are not being released from custody — only from prison. We’re going to have to wait for the other shoe to drop to find out what else Iran is demanding besides the $6 billion in greenbacks before our citizens can come home. But at least the five Americans have been transferred from Evin Prison to a hotel in Tehran.
As bad as an Iranian Marriott might be, it’s got to be better than that hellhole of a prison.
Related: Biden Admin Set to Buy Back Five U.S. Hostages From Iran for $6 Billion
Predictably, the Iranians have an entirely different take on part of the agreement–specifically, the cash. I’m not sure if it’s because Iran sees itself as holier than the U.S. or what, but any agreement we’ve made with them has always been open to what their interpretation of the agreement will be.
A good example was the nuclear agreement signed by the Obama administration in 2015. Obama made a big show of delivering a nationally televised address telling the American people all the wonderful things in the deal.
Except Iran had an entirely different take on many of the issues that we believed we had negotiated.
On modernizing their centrifuge machines, the U.S. was crystal clear:
Iran will dismantle two-thirds of its 19,000 installed centrifuges. Those devices, which spin uranium into material that can be used for a nuclear weapon, will be stored under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) oversight. Tehran will be left with 6,104 centrifuges, lower than some reported offers by the U.S., and 5,060 of those can be used to enrich uranium.
Iran’s interpretation was much different:
According to the solutions, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) for enrichment program will cover a 10-year period, during which more than 5,000 centrifuge machines will continue producing enriched material at Natanz facility up to the 3.67-percent level. Extra machines and the related infrastructure in the facility will be collected by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in order to be replaced by new machines consistent with the allowed standards. Accordingly, Iran will be allowed to allocate the current stockpile of enriched materials for the purpose of producing nuclear fuel or swapping it with uranium in the international markets.
Iran will continue research and development program on advanced centrifuge machines and will be also able to keep initiating and completing its R & D program on IR-4, IR-5, IR-6 and IR-8 machines in the 10-year period of the agreement.
Iran was prohibited from developing advanced centrifuges. But Iran claims it could continue developing the far faster and more efficient machines. This they did, and now they have machines that can spin-up twice as much uranium hex than they could before and in a lot less time.
Meanwhile, Iran is thumbing its nose at the U.S., which claims that Iran can only use the cash to buy food and humanitarian aid. Iran has a different idea.
“The process of releasing billions of dollars from the assets of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which were illegally seized in South Korea by the United States for several years, has begun,” Iran’s foreign ministry said in a statement. “The decision on how to utilize these unfrozen resources and financial assets lies with the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
The money is supposed to be managed by Qatar. According to the agreement announced yesterday, Qatar will play referee and decide whether Iran is using the cash under the conditions stipulated by the Biden administration.
But Qatar is good friends with Tehran, so if Iran wants to claim that an ICBM has “humanitarian” uses, they are not likely to contradict that.
Why is it only liberal Democrats — Carter, Obama, Biden — who are made to look like idiots by the Iranians?
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