{"id":217121,"date":"2016-01-18T19:48:47","date_gmt":"2016-01-18T19:48:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=217121"},"modified":"2016-01-18T19:48:47","modified_gmt":"2016-01-18T19:48:47","slug":"politics-prisoner-swap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/latest-news\/politics-prisoner-swap\/","title":{"rendered":"The Politics of the Prisoner Swap"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Even as advocates of peace in the Middle East celebrate the release of the
\nfive American prisoners held in Iran\u2019s jails, as well as the release of the
\nIranians<\/a> \u2014 most of them dual citizens of the US and Iran \u2014 either convicted
\nof violating US sanctions or charged<\/a>
\nwith doing so, a dark cloud obscures this sunlit moment. I\u2019m talking about the
\npolitical response \u2014 from both parties \u2014 to the prisoner swap, which bodes
\nill for the future.<\/p>\n

Frontrunner
\nDonald Trump<\/a> simultaneously condemned the prisoner swap while taking credit
\nfor it. \u201cSo I\u2019ve been hitting them hard,\u201d he said, \u201cand I think I might have
\nhad something to do with it.\u201d Yes, it\u2019s all about him<\/i>: a typical Trumpian
\nresponse. And yet on the other hand, this was another \u201cbad deal,\u201d like \u2014 in
\nTrump\u2019s view \u2014 the nuclear deal:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe give them $150 billion, we give them essentially 22 people \u2014 21, 22
\npeople \u2014 but these are people that really did have problems, and we\u2019re getting
\nback four people \u2026 That\u2019s the way we negotiate. That\u2019s the way we negotiate.
\nIt\u2019s so sad. It\u2019s so sad.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not at all surprising that this nonsense is coming from a megalomaniacal
\nlunatic like Trump. What\u2019s disturbing, however \u2014 although not the least bit
\nsurprising \u2014 is that a more sophisticated version of this is coming from the
\nfrontrunner on the other side of the partisan divide. While paying lip service
\nto the Obama administration\u2019s \u201cachievement\u201d in securing the nuclear deal \u2014 and
\nnow the release of the five Americans held by Tehran \u2014 Hillary Clinton has proposed
\nundoing all that<\/a> by imposing new sanctions on Iran:<\/p>\n

\u201cHours after the U.S. dropped sanctions on Iran as part of the nuclear deal,
\nDemocratic primary front-runner Hillary Clinton called for new sanctions on
\nthe nation for its ballistic missile program\u2026. <\/i><\/p>\n

\u201c\u2019Iran is still violating UN Security Council resolutions with its
\nballistic missile program, which should be met with new sanctions designations
\nand firm resolve,\u2019 she said. \u2018These prisoners were held unjustly by a regime
\nthat continues to threaten the peace and security of the Middle East. Another
\nAmerican, Bob Levinson, still isn\u2019t home with his family.\u2019 <\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Even as advocates of peace in the Middle East celebrate the release of the five American prisoners held in Iran\u2019s jails, as well as the release of the Iranians \u2014 most of them dual citizens of the US and Iran \u2014 either convicted of violating US sanctions or charged with doing so, a dark cloud […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-217121","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire","7":"category-latest-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217121\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}