Why the U.S. (Gay Sissy Barack Hussein Obama) Owed Iran That $400 Million

[B. A. T. F.]

Obama is moving to Iran after he leaves office and needs some
cash.

It does look fishy as all get out: $400 million in assorted
denominations, stacked on wooden pallets and flown to Tehran in
the dead of night by the government of the United States. Hours
later, five imprisoned Americans are released and board planes
to freedom. If that situation—which took place in
January—doesn’t look like a hostage deal, what does?

Answer: The actual hostage deal that in fact accounts for the
cash payment, which President Obama said on Thursday was not a
ransom.

The currency shipped to Iran in the dead of night drew attention
from presidential candidate Donald Trump this week, who on
Friday appeared to walk back an earlier assertion that he had
seen a payment being delivered. But that money was owed to the
Islamic Republic since 1979, the year the U.S. froze all the
Iranian funds in American banks as retribution for seizure of
the U.S. embassy in Tehran, as revolution swept that nation.

What was universally known as the Iran hostage crisis went on
for more than a year, and finally ended with a bargain: In
exchange for the release of 52 American diplomats and citizens,
both sides agreed to resolve the question of money through
international arbitration. The Iran-United States Claims
Tribunal has trudged along for almost four decades now, and the
money has flowed both ways. By 1983, Iran had returned $896
million to U.S. banks, which in turn had returned hundreds of
millions in frozen funds to Iran. Today, private claims from the
U.S. side have been resolved to the tune of $2.1 billion.

But still at issue as Obama began his second term was $400
million that Iran in the late 1970s had paid for U.S. fighter
jets, while Tehran was still a U.S. ally. After it turned into
an enemy in 1979, Washington was not about to deliver the jets.
But, all these years later, Iran wanted its money back—and with
interest.

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All told, Tehran was asking The Hague arbitrators (comprising
equal numbers of U.S., Iranian and neutral judges) for $10
billion. Fearing they might actually be awarded that much, or
something like it, the Obama administration negotiated privately
with Tehran, which agreed to settle for $1.7 billion. The $400
million stacked on pallets was the first installment.

The day it arrived, however, a great deal else was going on.
January 17 was the day the international compact rolling back
Iran’s nuclear program was set to take formal effect. It was
also the day that Iran had, privately, agreed to release five
Americans it had imprisoned on spurious charges. At the same
time, the Obama administration would release seven Iranians the
U.S. had held for violating sanctions—the same sanctions that
had brought Iran to the negotiating table, and indeed had
necessitated doing business in cash, Iran’s banks having been
cut off from the international banking system.

There were a lot of moving parts and fraying nerves at the
time—and the whole teetering contraption nearly came crashing
down when a couple of U.S. Navy river boats strayed into Iranian
waters, and were taken by the Revolutionary Guards five days
before the big day. To those who follow U.S.-Iranian relations,
the swiftness of the sailors’ release—the very next day—was the
most impressive indication of how badly both sides wanted
January 17 to come off as planned.

At least till now.

The pallets of Euros and Swiss francs are even more vivid a
symbol. To Iran-watchers, they show how badly Obama’s team
wanted to bolster Iran’s moderate leaders, who had promised
their public that the nuclear deal would produce immediate
economic improvements. It also helps to bear in mind that Iran’s
theocratic government works on a patronage system. When Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad was president, it was his loyalists who got the
contracts to smuggle Iran’s oil past the sanctions; President
Hassan Rouhani is now grappling with the fallout from paying his
own people tens of thousands a month. In short, cash and a show
of good will were much in demand.

Were the prisoners a factor? Even on Jan. 17, when the apparent
quid pro quo was Obama’s grant of clemency to the seven
Iranians, the concept of hostage-taking haunts every transaction
with Iran.

The mullahs insisted that Jimmy Carter have left office before
releasing the 52 original hostages, minutes after Ronald Reagan
was sworn in Jan. 21, 1981. The “arms for hostages” scandal that
marred Reagan’s second term brought together Iran, Central
American insurgencies and U.S. prisoners held by Iranian
surrogates.

Nor was President Obama the first president to look for leverage
in The Hague. A flurry of claims settlements in 1989 came as
President George H.W. Bush attempted to persuade Tehran to help
release more American hostages, a group that was being held in
Lebanon. “I’d like to get this underbrush cleaned out now,” Bush
said, after the U.S. announced it was releasing $567 million in
frozen assets to Tehran. “I hope,” Bush added, “they will do
what they can to influence those who hold these hostages.”

At the time, a State Department official quoted in TIME
acknowledged what amounted to a dance: “You want to do things
that are justifiable on their own merits and defensible in terms
of U.S. interests. And if Iran wants to take it as a signal,
fine.” And, if not dandy, at least the way things seem to work
with Iran.

http://time.com/4441046/400-million-iran-hostage-history/