"PRESIDENT OBAMA offered encouragement to the family and colleagues of Post reporter Jason Rezaian last weekend, saying, 'We will not rest until we bring him home to his family, safe and sound.' We hope Mr. Rezaian, who had been imprisoned in Iran for 281 days as of Wednesday, will hear of the president’s words. More important, though, they should be weighed by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who must realize that the unjust detention of an American journalist is only harming his regime."
The Washington Post hopes the Rezaian heard Obama's words? Obama, a dyed-in-the-wool narcissist who won't let anything stand in the way of his "legacy," is as serious about this commitment as he was concerning a "red line" involving the use of chemical weapons against Syrian civilians.
WaPo's conclusion:
"Mr. Obama has declined to make the release of Mr. Rezaian and other imprisoned Americans a condition for going forward with the nuclear accord. According to Haleh Esfandiari, a scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center who was held prisoner in Iran for 105 days in 2007, doing so might play into the hands of those responsible for Mr. Rezaian’s detention, who may hope to use his case to block any U.S.-Iranian detente. But Mr. Obama should look for other ways to make clear to Mr. Khamenei that he is serious about the commitment he made to the Rezaian family. As long as the journalist is held, Iran should pay a price."
"Iran should pay a price"? Quite the contrary. Obama is preparing to free up $50 billion of frozen Iranian bank deposits in order to induce Khamenei to agree to the nuclear deal with the P5+1 by the June 30 deadline. Meanwhile, Iran is growing more contemptuous of the US by the day.
What a horror story!
We need to support the Rubio Amendment. If the Rubio Amendment is a "poison pill", it should be.
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