Arms or Money for Hostages: What’s the Difference?

The Biden administration is transferring $6 billion in frozen Iranian assets in South Korea to an account in Qatar, which Iran will be able to access, in what appears to be an attempt to get Iran to release five imprisoned Americans.

National Security Communications Coordinator John Kirby offered this twisted explanation to Jake Tapper of CNN: “(This is) “not a ransom.” Instead, Kirby claimed the account containing the money is one “that has not been made accessible” to Iran, and the administration is simply “making that one account that has been in existence for several years more accessible to the Iranians.”

Kirby claimed the money can only be used for “humanitarian purposes.” Does anyone believe that the world’s number one sponsor of terrorism will be using this money, or the $400 million in cash previously sent to Iran by the Obama administration on a cargo plane the same day Iran released four American prisoners and formally implemented the nuclear deal, for humanitarian purposes? Then, Republicans reacted by claiming that paying what they regarded as a ransom for the release of the U.S. citizens, “puts even more Americans at risk,” said then-Senator Mark Kirk (R-Ill). Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark) echoed Kirk’s criticism,

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