by Susan Crabtree at RealClear Wire
Nizar Zakka knows exactly what it’s like to be left behind in a U.S. hostage deal with Iran in which billions of dollars were exchanged.
In 2016, Zakka and his family believed he would be included in a hostage deal negotiated by the Obama administration in which the U.S. government provided $1.7 billion in assets to Tehran, including $400 million paid in cash and delivered to the Iranian government by a U.S. military plane.
The agreement was timed to ensure the release of four U.S. hostages as the nuclear agreement between the U.S. and Iran and four other world powers was set to take effect.
Among those freed was Jason Rezaion, a Washington Post reporter whom an Iranian court convicted on bogus spying charges in 2015. Washington journalists, who had launched a vocal campaign to pressure the Obama White House for Rezaion’s safe return, celebrated their colleague’s freedom. But Republican lawmakers and other critics blamed Obama for giving Tehran and other countries incentive for more hostage-taking, and some human rights advocates faulted the deal for failing to bring all Americans held in Iran home.
Now those same critics argue it’s “déjà vu all over again” with the latest hostage deal involving nearly three times the amount of unfrozen assets the U.S. government agreed to release seven years ago in the last prisoner swap with Iran.
Five Americans are being freed from detention in Iran in exchange for the U.S. agreeing to…
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