Five American prisoners may soon be released from yearslong Iranian detention as part of a deal by the Biden administration. But somehow, Republicans are still coming up with reasons to be mad.
The GOP furor centers largely on the terms of the tentative agreement: In exchange for the prisoners’ release, the Islamic Republic would regain access to some $6 billion of its assets that have been frozen in South Korean banks for several years due to US sanctions. “China and Russia, who are also holding Americans hostages, now know the price has just gone up,” tweeted former vice president Mike Pence, a Republican presidential hopeful. He further claimed that the funds would allow Iran to orchestrate terrorist attacks and produce drones for Russia.
While US officials have said the funds would be restricted solely to humanitarian aid, Republicans have nonetheless accused the president of capitulating to ransom demands and incentivizing the future kidnapping of American citizens. Senator James Risch of Idaho, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, claimed that unfreezing the assets would “dangerously further incentivizes hostage taking & provides a windfall for regime aggression.” And Senator Tom Cotton, an Arkansas Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, released a statement describing the deal as a “craven act of appeasement.”
Meanwhile, former secretary of state Mike Pompeo also jumped into the fray: “Releasing $6 billion to the butchers in Tehran just so American hostages can go to a different type of prison is a terrible deal,” he tweeted. “Iran shouldn’t profit from holding Americans hostage.” (The American detainees were recently moved from a prison to house arrest at a hotel, but the pending deal would eventually see them freed from the country.)
In response to Pompeo, Senator Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, attacked the former Trump official as “the last person” who should be advising the White House about Iran. “Not sure a 7 year old could have bungled Iran policy worse than Pompeo did,” tweeted Murphy. “When he left, they were rebuilding their nuke program, shooting at our soldiers again, increasing support for regional proxies.”
For roughly the last decade, the Republican stance on prisoner exchanges has largely been to let Americans languish: Many within the GOP vehemently objected to the conditions of WNBA star Brittney Griner’s release from Russia last December. The party went into a similar tizzy in 2016, when Barack Obama sent $400 million by plane to Iran as four American prisoners were released. Two years earlier, Republicans also questioned a deal by Obama that secured the release Bowe Bergdahl, an Army sergeant who walked off base in Afghanistan, from the Taliban.
The deal, which is expected to take weeks to be finalized, would see the frozen funds transferred to an account in the central bank of Qatar. “We are simply moving the account to a country which will have a system that Iran will be able to access…their funds,” John Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council, told CBS News. “The money is only earmarked for humanitarian purposes. The same oversight is going to be applied in this account as was applied in previous accounts.”
However, in a Friday statement, Iran’s foreign ministry appeared to deny the terms laid out by Kirby. “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,” a regime spokesperson said. “The decision on how to utilize these unfrozen resources and financial assets lies with the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
The list of American detainees includes Siamak Namazi, Emad Sharghi, and Morad Tahbaz—all of whom were hit with spying charges that have been rejected by the US government. “We will not rest until they are all back home in the United States,” National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a statement Thursday. “Until that time, negotiations for their eventual release remain ongoing and are delicate.”