Diplomatically, it’s easy to stipulate that we don’t negotiate with countries who take prisoners. It’s an act of war, and will be handled as such (economic or otherwise).
In this case, Trump is LEADING with economic warfare. Nobody is giving him credit for it.
Aggression against the US in exchange for economic and/or military concessions is stupid, but has been policy since Reagan.
There is a story that I learned since has quite a lot of truth to it that the Iranian hostages were released the day Reagan took office, because the first thing Reagan did was authorize the kidnapping of family members of the hostage takers. They clipped off a few digits, put them in a box, and sent them by diplomatic pouch to Iran’s government.
Bribery should be a shooting offense. It completely undermines good government. It’s why we are in the situation we are in today.
POTUS tweeted about the pastor yesterday. Called him a “hostage” among other things. Pretty clear he is not backing down and will drop another hammer on Erdogan if necessary.
>>>There is a story that I learned since has quite a lot of truth to it that the Iranian hostages were released the day Reagan took office, because the first thing Reagan did was authorize the kidnapping of family members of the hostage takers. They clipped off a few digits, put them in a box, and sent them by diplomatic pouch to Iran’s government<<<
That was actually the Ruskies.
Our Hostages were released the moment Reagan raised his Right Hand to take the Oath of Office, so he didn’t have the power to collect Iranian digits before that moment.
Iran knew that unlike Carter, POTUS Reagan would wipe them out if they didn’t release the Hostages.
The Liberal Media cover story was Iran released the Hostages to make POTUS Carter look bad, so I guess that means Iran colluded with Reagan, right? LOL