Max Boot and Michael Pregent, "Appeasing Iran hurts us in Iraq, too": Trading Hostages for Airplanes?

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One week ago, while Jason Rezaian and four other American prisoners were being released by Iran, Shiite militiamen abducted three Americans from the Dora neighborhood of southern Baghdad. As reported by Erin Cunningham and Mustafa Salim in a Washington Post article entitled "Iraqi official: 3 Americans missing in Baghdad were kidnapped by gunmen":

"The area from which they were taken is controlled by Shiite militias, including Iran-backed Asaib Ahl al-Haq, or League of the Righteous, [a Baghdad police colonel] said.

. . . .

The colonel said the group had been invited to the home of their Iraqi interpreter. But a resident of the apartment building where the Americans were reportedly seized said they were taken from a second-story apartment that he described as a well-known brothel.

. . . .

The resident said the apartment is subject to frequent raids by Asaib Ahl ­al-Haq, although typically the men found inside are simply told to leave."

The three Americans were taken from a well-known brothel? Oh really? One of the three abducted Americans is a woman.

More to the point, Tehran knows exactly where these Americans are being held.

Today, in a must-read Washington Post opinion piece entitled "Appeasing Iran hurts us in Iraq, too," Max Boot (author of "War Made New" on the bookshelf opposite me) and Michael Pregent say of this kidnapping:

"AAH [Asaib Ahl al-Haq] is a wholly owned subsidiary of Iran’s Quds Force. It is inconceivable that it could kidnap and hold Americans — a course of action with significant international repercussions — without at least the acquiescence, and probably the active support, of Tehran. Yet the Obama administration is doing all it can to obfuscate that reality. Reuters cited 'U.S. government sources' in reporting that 'Washington had no reason to believe Tehran was involved in the kidnapping and did not believe the trio were being held in Iran, which borders Iraq.'

. . . .

If another news report is to be believed, the administration is pretty sure who is responsible for the kidnapping but just won’t say so in public. CBS News reports: 'Officials in Washington had hoped the Iranian government would tell the militia group to hold off because of all the negotiations surrounding the prisoner swap that saw the release of five Americans. The State Department source said the fear was that one of the groups might have ‘gone off the reservation.’'"

The Shiite militiamen acted against the wishes of Tehran? Not a chance.

Meanwhile, Iranian Transport Minister Abbas Akhoundi suggested yesterday that Iran might be interested in acquiring aircraft from Boeing. Why not? After all, the Obama administration just paid $1.7 billion for the release of Rezaian and the other four Americans, so why not trade these new American captives for the cost of some new planes?

Do you remember how, just eight days ago, Obama declared that the release of Rezaian and the four other prisoners held by Iran resulted from "smart, patient and disciplined" diplomacy? Obama still doesn't understand that he is being played for a fool by Khamenei and friends.

New York Times, "New Tensions Over the Iran Nuclear Deal": Another Obscene Editorial From the Times

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In an editorial entitled "New Tensions Over the Iran Nuclear Deal," The New York Times worries that Obama's nuclear deal with Iran is unravelling, as a consequence of restrictions on the entry into the US of persons who visited Iran in the last five years. Failing to mention that the "deal" was never signed, the Times would have us know:

"Restricting visas for people who travel to Iraq and Syria makes sense, given that both are home turf for the Islamic State, and Sudan has been a transit point for extremists heading to Syria and Iraq. It is hard not to view Iran’s inclusion as another attempt by Congress to sabotage the nuclear deal, which most lawmakers opposed.

While Shiite-led Iran is on the terrorism list because of its support for Hezbollah and Hamas, it is fighting the Islamic State, a Sunni group, in Iraq."

The editorial board of the Times would do well to read a March 28, 2015 Foreign Policy article entitled "The U.S. Is Providing Air Cover for Ethnic Cleansing in Iraq," subtitled "Iran’s Shiite militias aren’t a whole lot better than the Islamic State," by Michael Weiss and Michael Pregent, which informs us:

"Sunni villages in Amerli and Suleiman Bek, in the Salah ad-Din province, have been looted or destroyed by militiamen operating on the specious assumption that all inhabitants once ruled by IS must be IS sympathizers or collaborators. Human Rights Watch has also lately discovered that the 'liberation' of Amerli last October — another PMU/Iranian-led endeavor, only this one abetted by U.S. airstrikes in the early stages — was characterized by wide-scale abuses including the looting and burning of homes and business of Sunni residents of villages surrounding Amerli. The apparent aim was ethnic cleansing. Human Rights Watch concluded, from witness accounts, that “building destruction in at least 47 predominantly Sunni villages was methodical and driven by revenge and intended to alter the demographic composition of Iraq’s traditionally diverse provinces of Salah al-Din and Kirkuk.'

. . . .

The Obama administration’s counterterrorism-driven policy for the Middle East, and a quietly pursued diplomatic reconciliation with Iran, has resulted in America’s diminishment of grave war crimes committed by Iran’s clients and proxies, and the problem is hardly just confined to Iraq. In Syria, for instance, the National Defense Force, a conglomerate of militias trained and equipped by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps-Quds Force (IRGC) — a U.S.-designated terrorist entity — has been accused by the Syrian Network for Human Rights and the Euro-Mid Observer for Human Rights, of '[burning] at least 81 people to death, including 46 civilians; 18 children, 7 women, and 35 of the armed opposition fighters,' along with other pro-Assad forces. The State Department has offered condolences to Iran’s President Hasan Rouhani on the death of his mother; to date, it has not said a word about the immolation of these Syrians at the hands of a Quds Force-built guerrilla army."

Shame on the Times!