Hope and Fail

Caving to Iran while it still holds foreign hostages

Iranian diplomats held in Iraq for more than two years wave to relatives as they arrive at Tehran's Mehrabad airport July 12.

The United States caved to a demand from Iran that it release five suspected members of the Quds Force who were captured in 2007 in Iraq and accused of arming and training Iraqi militants.

Releasing the five has been mentioned as a bargaining chip to jump start negotiations with Iran, or as an attempt to get Iran to release foreigners it is holding captive.

But, it appears, President Obama has let them go without gaining anything in return.

From the New York Times:

The American military here unexpectedly released five Iranians on Thursday after holding them for more than two years on suspicion of orchestrating deadly attacks in Iraq. Iraqi officials promised to turn them over to the Iranian Embassy in Baghdad after Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki met with them in his office.

The American military and a senior aide to President Obama offered few details about the release or its timing. A military spokesman here, Capt. Brad Kimberly, said in a statement that the release had come “at the request of the government of Iraq” and complied with the security agreement between the United States and Iraq which requires the eventual transfer of all detainees in American custody.

Denis McDonough, a deputy national security adviser traveling with Mr. Obama in L’Aquila, Italy, for meetings of the Group of 8 industrialized nations, said the release was not a diplomatic gesture toward Iran, which the administration has sought to engage on some contentious issues, like the country’s nuclear program, so far unsuccessfully.

As Ed Morrissey at Hot Air and Joe Klein of Time Magazine note, without getting anything significant from Iran — such as the release of British diplomats or reporters currently being held by Tehran — the U.S. is wasting an important bargaining chip.

Especially since the five Iranians were training Iraqi militants to kill American soldiers. From the Associated Press:

The Iranians were detained in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil in January 2007. At the time U.S. authorities said the men included the operations chief and other members of Iran’s elite Quds Force, which is accused of arming and training Iraqi militants.

Iran denied the claim, and has described the men as diplomats who were kidnapped by U.S. forces. Mottaki accused President Barack Obama of continuing the bullying practices of his predecessor.

“Iran preserves its right for legal action against the bullying act of the Bush administration in detaining Iranian diplomats, which was unfortunately continued in the new administration,” Mottaki was quoted as saying by Iranian television.

The U.S. has long charged that Iran is behind much of the violence in Iraq and has been financing and assisting Shiite militias in attacks against U.S. and Iraqi forces.

And let us not forget the unrest and ensuing violent crackdown of the Iranian government on its people who made the mistake of demanding their votes be counted accurately.

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