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We can now expect the Iranian regime to arrest or abduct more Americans anywhere it can. Collecting hostages is now big business. Pictured: Three of the US citizens who were held hostage in Iran, Siamak Namazi (back), Emad Sharqi (L) and Morad Tahbaz (C) disembark in Doha, Qatar on September 18, 2023.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Even though Iran is a party to the International Convention against the Taking of Hostages, the Islamist regime has long violated it, as it has other commitments, by taking foreign hostages as pawns to extract economic concessions and achieve geopolitical and financial gains.<\/em><\/p>\n We can now expect the Iranian regime to arrest or abduct more Americans anywhere it can. Collecting hostages is now big business. Other hostile governments will most likely be tempted to abduct Americans, as well.<\/em><\/p>\n Secret attempts by the Biden administration to reach an interim deal with the mullahs have threatened to add not only an estimated $100 billion into Iran’s economy, but also, worse, to catapult an Iranian nuclear menace onto the world.<\/em><\/p>\n “This exchange operation is in fact one of the most successful and effective negotiation [efforts] ever to happen to the Islamic Republic of Iran. In essence, we released a few Iranian prisoners in exchange for some prisoners whose sentences were about to end, and, on the other hand, we succeeded in releasing billions of dollars of our blocked resources without committing to anything else.”\u00a0 Senior Iranian security source, interview with Fars News, August 12, 2023.<\/em><\/p>\n After Obama transferred this $1.7 billion to the Iranian regime to release five Iranian-American prisoners, the theocratic establishment became more emboldened than ever.<\/em><\/p>\n “The Trump administration secured prisoner releases without ransom payments….” \u2014 Saeed Ghasseminejad, Iran expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Fox News, September 18, 2023.<\/em><\/p>\n Increased revenues will also allow the IRGC and Khamenei to crush more easily any domestic protests against their government. The other priorities of Iran’s regime are to “export the revolution,” and regional military domination. Targeted for this project are Yemen, Syria, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Latin America, Lebanon and Iraq — and strengthening the regime’s militias and terror groups. America and Israel are presumably being fattened up for eventual extermination.<\/em><\/p>\n That is what $6 billion has bought us. And the “Iran Nuclear Deal,” which will enable the Iranian regime legitimately to have as many nuclear weapons as it likes, is not even dead.<\/em><\/p>\n The Iranian regime has lately been\u00a0collecting<\/a>\u00a0hostages:\u00a0Topher Richwhite<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Bridget Thackwray<\/a>\u00a0from New Zealand, detained in July 2022, Johan Floderus, a European\u00a0diplomat<\/a>\u00a0from Sweden detained in April 2022, and Bernard Phelan from France\u00a0detained<\/a>\u00a0in October 2022.<\/em><\/p>\n This escalation in hostage-taking of Europeans by Iran’s regime should not come as a surprise: the Belgian government last year proposed and\u00a0ratified<\/a>\u00a0legislation that paved the way to\u00a0transfer<\/a>\u00a0terrorists who have been convicted abroad back to Iran. The so-called treaty between the Belgian government and the Iranian regime was designed to\u00a0secure<\/a>\u00a0the release of Iranian diplomat-terrorist Assadollah Assadi.<\/em><\/p>\n Assadi was\u00a0arrested<\/a>\u00a0in 2018 for plotting to bomb a huge rally held outside Paris, organized by an Iranian opposition group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran. Last year, Assadi was convicted and\u00a0sentenced<\/a>\u00a0to 20 years in prison by a Belgian court for masterminding the terror plot. Had it been successful, it could well have been the worst terrorist incident in modern European history.<\/em><\/p>\n Even though Iran is a\u00a0party<\/a>\u00a0to the International Convention against the Taking of Hostages, the Islamist regime has long violated it, as it has other\u00a0commitments<\/a>, by taking foreign hostages as pawns to extract economic concessions and achieve geopolitical and financial gains.<\/em><\/p>\n The Iranian regime scored the biggest victory in its hostage-taking investment just days ago on September 11, the anniversary of the 9\/11 attacks on America, when the Biden administration\u00a0paid $6 billion<\/a>\u00a0and released a handful of Iranian nationals who are serving prison sentences in the US, in exchange for the release of five Iranian-Americans who were imprisoned in Iran. That comes to more than a billion dollars per person\u2014 not a bad haul for five captives.<\/em><\/p>\n The most unattractive part is that, as an Iranian security official\u00a0boasted<\/a>, the sentences for the five Iranian-Americans were about to end anyway. We can now expect the Iranian regime to arrest or abduct more Americans anywhere it can. Collecting hostages is now big business. Other hostile governments will most likely be tempted to abduct Americans, as well.<\/em><\/p>\n Incidentally, Iran was found guilty of having provided “assistance<\/a>” to the 9\/11 attackers and ordered to pay the for those attacks and ordered to pay\u00a0billions<\/a>\u00a0of dollars to the families of the victims.<\/em><\/p>\n Thanks to the Biden administration’s continual appeasement of the Iranian regime, the mullahs have also rapidly\u00a0advanced<\/a>\u00a0their nuclear weapons program, increasing the\u00a0enrichment<\/a>\u00a0of uranium to 84%, just a shade below the 90% level needed for nuclear weapons. Secret\u00a0attempts<\/a>\u00a0by the Biden administration to reach an interim deal with the mullahs have threatened to add not only an estimated\u00a0$100 billion<\/a>\u00a0into Iran’s economy, but also, worse, to catapult an Iranian nuclear menace onto the world.<\/em><\/p>\n As Senator Mitt Romney recently\u00a0stated<\/a>:<\/em><\/p>\n “If we’re paying a billion dollars per kidnapped individual, then you’re going to see more kidnappings. That’s why you don’t negotiate with terrorists, that’s why you don’t negotiate with kidnappers. The idea of basically paying to release, in this effect, a hostage is a terrible idea. Remember back in the Reagan years, we had \u2014 was it \u2014 guns for hostages, that was the story, remember that? This is a billion dollars for a hostage.”<\/em><\/p>\n Senator Tom Cotton\u00a0called<\/a>\u00a0the action “shameful”:<\/em><\/p>\n “First Joe Biden used 9\/11 as an excuse to flee Afghanistan. Now he desecrates this day by paying ransom to the world’s worst state sponsor of terrorism. Shameful.”<\/em><\/p>\n Iran’s rulers, however, understandably view this windfall as a huge success. The indispensable website MEMRI released a\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0titled “Iranian Regime Policy: Arresting Westerners And Releasing Them In Exchange For Financial And Political Gain,” which cites an Iranian security official who\u00a0bragged<\/a>\u00a0in August, 2023:<\/em><\/p>\n “This exchange operation is in fact one of the most successful and effective negotiation [efforts] ever to happen to the Islamic Republic of Iran. In essence, we released a few Iranian prisoners in exchange for some prisoners whose sentences were about to end, and, on the other hand, we succeeded in releasing billions of dollars of our blocked resources without committing to anything else.”<\/em><\/p>\n The Iranian security official also\u00a0boasted<\/a> to Fars News which is affiliated<\/a>\u00a0with Iran’s\u00a0terrorist<\/a> Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) that “this sum of money [$6 billion] that was released to Iran this time is four or five times greater than [the amount released] the last time,” a reference to September 7, 2016, when former President Barack Hussein Obama transferred<\/a>\u00a0$1.7 billion in cash to the leaders of the Iranian regime.<\/em><\/p>\n After Obama transferred the $1.7 billion to the Iranian regime to release\u00a0five<\/a>\u00a0Iranian-American prisoners, the theocratic establishment became more emboldened than ever. Iranian Vice President for Economic Affairs Mohsen Rezaee\u00a0told<\/a>\u00a0Iran’s Channel 2 in 2021 that he would capture 1,000 Americans, to earn the regime a trillion dollars by demanding $1 billion ransom for each hostage.<\/em><\/p>\n Ayelet Savyon, director of MEMRI’s Iran Studies Project and the author of the hostage report,\u00a0pointed out<\/a>:<\/em><\/p>\n “This success was the basis for the practice’s continued use by Iran, and Iranian officials have in recent years recommended several times that Americans or Britons be taken hostage and released in exchange for billions of dollars to boost the Iranian economy or for political gains from the Western countries.”<\/em><\/p>\n Saeed Ghasseminejad, Iran expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies,\u00a0told<\/a>\u00a0Fox News this month:<\/em><\/p>\n “The Trump administration secured prisoner releases without ransom payments, relying instead on just swaps. While exchanging people who have been guilty of nefarious activities such as sanctions-busting and proliferation with innocent American hostages is not ideal, it is still a better option than paying ransom.”<\/em><\/p>\n Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,\u00a0designated<\/a>\u00a0as a terrorist organization by the US Department of State, will most likely be the first\u00a0beneficiaries<\/a>\u00a0of any extra revenues and Biden’s $6 billion gift. The Iranian regime will likely use additional funds to capture more Americans, deliver weapons to Russia and strengthen its own military. Increased revenues will also allow the IRGC and Khamenei to crush more easily any domestic protests against their government. The other priorities of Iran’s regime are to “export the revolution,” and regional military domination. Targeted for this project are\u00a0Yemen,<\/a>\u00a0Syria<\/a>,\u00a0Hamas<\/a>,\u00a0Palestinian Islamic Jihad<\/a>,\u00a0Latin America<\/a>, Lebanon and Iraq — and strengthening the regime’s militias and terror groups.\u00a0America<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Israel<\/a>\u00a0are presumably being fattened up for eventual extermination.<\/em><\/p>\n