Three Iranian-Americans have arrived in Germany from Tehran after a prisoner swap, following the lifting of most sanctions under an agreement that curtails Iran’s nuclear program for at least the next 15 years. Two other Americans were also freed, but went to separate destinations.
The prisoner swap, the swift return of 10 U.S. sailors who trespassed with their patrol boats inside Iran’s territorial waters last week, and the implementation of obligations in the nuclear agreement itself all mark a triumph for the diplomatic efforts of the Obama administration.
After being informed that the prisoners were on their way out of Iran, and when it was verifiably clear that Iran had met its obligations in the nuclear agreement, President Obama noted Sunday: “This is a good day because once again we’re seeing what’s possible with strong American diplomacy. These things are a reminder of what we can achieve when we lead with strength and with wisdom."
Indeed.
Neo-conservatives, of course, including several Republican presidential candidates, view the nuclear deal, the negotiations that led to its approval last July, and even the release of the prisoners as signs of weakness. From their point of view, it no doubt would have been better if the U.S. had sent one of its Persian Gulf aircraft carriers up to Farsi Island to retrieve those sailors and perhaps launch a couple of missiles onto the Iranian base there for good measure. Diplomacy is obviously for pantywaists, and Michael Bay can’t make a movie that has no pyrotechics.
However, as the ranking member of the Permanent House Select Committee on Intelligence, California Rep. Adam Schiff of California told The Washington Post Sunday: “I think most Americans are thrilled that these fellow citizens are coming home,” he said. “The few Americans who don’t seem pleased all seem to be running for president.”
When the intruding sailors were taken at gunpoint, you could almost smell the gun oil as some of those candidates and other naysayers lubed their Twitter accounts and hinted that firm action was required to deal with Iran. At the heart of their remarks, one could detect a profound hope that the seizure of the sailors might somehow do what they had been unable to accomplish in Congress or elsewise: Scuttle the nuclear pact.
Here’s Ali Gharib at Lobelog:
A few themes among neoconservative reactions gave away the game. Take this tweet from the Israel Project‘s Omri Ceren: “I think a ‘hostile’ seizure of US sailors counts as an ‘attack.’” Or this one from the American Enterprise Institute‘s Danielle Pletka: “‘No nation dares to attack us or our allies because they know that’s the path to ruin.’ So what’s up with those sailors in #Iran?” Oh! It’s an “attack” on America! A hostile military act against our military! Raise the alarms: America under attack! Ruin them! One can safely presume that Ceren and Pletka do not believe that attacks on America should go unanswered, that such attacks should be responded to in kind. I can’t really imagine them uttering the sentence, Iran just attacked us but we should keep our powder dry and not attack them back. That feels out of character.
The deluge of this political manure, some of it amplified by the know-nothings at various media outlets, including a bogus labeling of the sailors as “hostages,” no doubt aimed to stir up Americans’ justifiably angry memories of the real hostage situation that Iran’s revolutionaries undertook in the wake of the 1979 overthrow of the American-installed puppet, Shah Reza Pahlavi. But the sailors were not hostages—they were prisoners.
While parading them for propaganda purposes was a violation of the Geneva Convention’s proscriptions on using military prisoners for this purpose, that did not make them hostages. So far as we know, they were otherwise treated well. (Some experts note that since Iran and the United States are not at war, the Geneva Conventions don’t apply. Others say that since military forces in both countries were involved, the spirit of the conventions should apply.)
Whatever the case in that regard, disappointment must have rained thick and heavy among the naysayers when those prisoners were released less than 16 hours after being taken into custody, dashing the bomb-bomb-bomb crowd’s hopes of some kind of Pyrrhic vindication of their you-can’t-trust-Iran mantra.
Although many progressives are sharply and legitimately critical of various elements of Obama’s foreign policy overall—the drone war, the sending of additional combat advisers to the Middle East, and maintaining a force in Afghanistan being some obvious examples—the Iran agreement marks a shining moment in his presidency. We can only hope that the next president views this diplomatic success not as some one-off, but as an effort deserving replication in all of our foreign relations.
That hope is totally at cross-purposes with the views of the only Republican candidates with a chance of getting their party’s nomination. As Steve Benen at The Rachel Maddow Show’s blog points out:
Under normal circumstances, when good things happen for the United States, there’s nothing wrong with being happy – especially if you intend to lead the United States. But in this case, most Republicans were so reflexively opposed to diplomacy with Iran, so repulsed by any of President Obama’s successes, and so worried about the possible perception that the White House’s foreign policy is actually working, several national GOP candidates condemned the triumph – the success was “a sign of weakness,” according to Republicans – and conservatives went out of their way to deny Obama credit for the positive developments. [...]
It may seem counter-intuitive to see those running for president complaining about an American success story, but in 2016, Republicans are heavily invested in convincing their base that the United States is unraveling; President Obama is literally incapable of doing anything right; and all news, no matter how encouraging, must be seen through a prism of dystopian despair.
Like so many of their ilk, they equate being tough with chest-pounding—and how many bodies they can send to premature graves.
