The Republican Lack of Foreign Policy Savvy

Iran released five American prisoners over the weekend. This was the result of years of negotiations, conducted mostly by John Kerry, but made possible by the nuclear deal that finally reached the final "implementation" stage.

True to form, Republican candidates for president proved they have no talent for foreign policy. Marco Rubio said it set a "dangerous precedent," and put Ronald Reagan forth as an example of how to negotiate for hostages. Ted Cruz said we released nuclear terrorists. At his most ridiculous, Donald Trump claimed credit for the release, implying that miraculous things just spontaneously happen every time he opens his yap.

The release of the prisoners on implementation day was predictable. The Iranians like to link releases to significant dates. After they took US embassy personnel hostage in 1979, they released them on the day Ronald Reagan was inaugurated in 1981.

It's not clear what Rubio was talking about when he used Reagan as an example. If Rubio was saying that Reagan negotiated with the Iranians before he was inaugurated, then Rubio was admitting that the rumors are true about Reagan's future CIA director cutting a deal with the Iranians to delay releasing the hostages until after the 1980 presidential election was over and Reagan was president (the October Surprise). This theory contends that Reagan rewarded Iran for the hostage release by selling Iran hundreds of missiles in 1985, during the Iran-Iraq war.

Or was Rubio referring to Reagan's negotiations for the release of hostages in Lebanon?

[U]nder the Reagan administration, White House officials later tried to arrange the sale of arms to Iran in the hope of winning the release of U.S. hostages in Lebanon. The profits from the sales were then illegally diverted to the Contra rebels fighting to overthrow the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. Discovery of the arms-for-hostages deal led to several congressional investigations. Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North was convicted, but his sentence was overturned on appeal. Reagan publicly denied knowing about the operation by his staff. 

Reagan repeatedly negotiated with terrorists, often with the assistance of Israel, the darling of the Republicans in all things terrorist. Yet Israel has performed dozens of prisoner swaps with Hezbollah and Hamas over the years, even giving up prisoners accused of terrorism in exchange for the corpses of Israeli soldiers.

Cruz says that the prisoners released to Iran in exchange for the American were "nuclear terrorists." The fact is that they were charged with violating economic sanctions against Iran. Those sanctions have now been dropped, in exchange for Iran turning over 98% of its nuclear material and destroying a huge number of centrifuges used to refine uranium.

Since those sanctions have been dropped, the Iranians being held were accused of activities that are not illegal now. Does it make any sense for our government to waste money prosecuting something is no longer a crime?

Also, the men Iran took prisoner were well aware of the danger they faced visiting Iran. All are of Iranian extraction. They all knew Iran has no freedom of the press or of religion, and has equated journalism with espionage for decades. While these men seem like innocent victims and pawns to most Americans, they knew going in that the Iranian government perceives their activities to be dangerous and subversive. But they accepted the risk because they believed in what they were doing.

Trump's self-congratulations for the hostage release are absolutely preposterous. He looks like a two-year-old pointing into a potty chair, proudly crowing, "I made a poo-poo!"

It's not just the Republican presidential candidates who are clueless. The Republican Party as a whole condemned the president when the Iran deal was made months ago and Jason Rezaian wasn't released. To anyone familiar with the way the Iranians work, it was clear that the journalists were being held as bargaining chips -- an extra incentive to the United States, to be cashed in when we made good on our part of the nuclear deal.


The behavior of the Republican Party indicates that they are either completely ignorant of foreign relations, or in their thirst for partisan advantage they don't give a damn about hurting the interests of the United States and its citizens.

Either way, they've shown yet again that they're not competent to run the country.