Say Anything Blog

Roxanna Saberi was the Fargo, North Dakota journalist who was imprisoned in Iran after being accused of being a spy.  The Obama administration negotiated her release, but it turns out that Iran’s asking price for that release was the release of at least five Iranian terrorists, which has already been done, and possibly the release of hundreds more.

...President Obama’s release of the Quds terrorists is a natural continuation of his administration’s stunningly irresponsible policy of bartering terrorist prisoners for hostages. As I detailed here on June 24, Obama has already released a leader of the Iran-backed Asaib al-Haq terror network in Iraq, a jihadist who is among those responsible for the 2007 murders of five American troops in Karbala. While the release was ludicrously portrayed as an effort to further “Iraqi reconciliation” (as if that would be a valid reason to spring a terrorist who had killed Americans), it was in actuality a naïve attempt to secure the reciprocal release of five British hostages — and a predictably disastrous one: The terror network released only the corpses of two of the hostages, threatening to kill the remaining three (and who knows whether they still are alive?) unless other terror leaders were released.

Michael Ledeen has reported that the release of the Irbil Five is part of the price Iran has demanded for its release in May of the freelance journalist Roxana Saberi. Again, that’s only part of the price: Iran also has demanded the release of hundreds of its other terror facilitators in our custody. Expect to see Obama accommodate this demand, too, in the weeks ahead.

I’m as glad as anyone that Roxanna Saberi is no longer wasting away in some Iranian dungeon, but at the expense of giving Iran back possibly hundreds of its terrorist foot soldiers?  I’m not sure that’s a good deal.  And, frankly, I’m not so sure it doesn’t encourage Iran to simply jail more Americans in hope of using them as leverage to win more concessions out of the limp-wristed Obama.