An unmarked plane lands in Tehran. Its cargo? Cash. $410 million worth of cash.
What’s this? The mafia? A drug deal? A movie? Funds for terrorists?
Well, yes, it is funds for terrorists.
As the plane comes in for landing, Tehran prepares to release American hostages, but it doesn’t actually release them until the plane lands.
Ransom? Coincidence?
Call it what you want, it is unseemly for anyone, let alone the most powerful exemplar of freedom and human dignity on the earth.
Had a private citizen done the same, he would be jailed.
Ransom? Coincidence?
Either one is an abject rationalization for ignomy, whether legal or not.
The sub rosa money transfer concluded, we are told by the government, a 27-year-long negotiation with Iran. Which just happened to conclude on the day that the Iran nuclear deal was implemented — a deal about which, however, we were not told included a separate, $400 million negotiation with Iran as the nuclear deal was being negotiated and voted on.
Cover up. Unmarked plan. Cash. Unseemly. Unworthy of our flag and the republic for which it stands — a point of view, by the way, shared by the administration’s own Justice Dept.
One more word: unwise.
This squalid cash delivery may be deemed not a ransom by its defenders, but what counts — for the future — is how the recipients of the cash, and other enemies of the US, perceive it. They call it: Kidnap more Americans. Make other outrageous demands. The demands will be met. The precedent has been intensified (not set; that ignominious distinction belongs to Ronald Reagan and his arms-for- hostages deal — with Iran).
Meanwhile, money, cash or not, is fungible. This $400 million will propel Iran’s sponsorship of terrorism — including terrorism against Israel by Hezbollah and others — or will enable Iran’s purchase of nuclear materiel from North Korea. If the defenders of this $400 million cash delivery to Tehran cannot see that, there is a different word, not ransom, not confidence, not squalor, that is operative here; this time, unequivocally:
Delusion.
Copyright © 2016 by the Intermountain Jewish News
