After purposefully not pushing for the release of American hostages as part of the Iran nuclear agreement, the Obama administration is now reduced to hoping that Iran will soon decide on its own to release them.
But according to experts, Iran is highly unlikely to grant the Obama administration’s wish in the short-term, and may only do so after building up trust over months or even years.
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“There is optimism there — there’s a lot of hope that this might provide an opening on not just the prisoner issue but others,” Laicie Heeley, a fellow with the Stimson Center who focuses on Iran and nuclear weapons proliferation, told the Washington Examiner. “But there’s zero assurance or certainty there that Iran will change its behavior.”
Mathew Kroenig, an Iran expert at the Atlantic Council and the author of “A Time to Attack: The Looming Iranian Nuclear Threat,” is even more pessimistic about the U.S. hostages’ return.
“Holding these prisoners really has nothing to do with domestic or international law — they are bargaining chips that gives them some leverage over us to give us something they promised over time,” he told the Examiner.
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Obama administration officials for the two-year duration of the marathon nuclear negotiations have steadfastly avoided inserting other non-nuclear related topics in the talks. Officials have said that the main goal was trying to prevent Iran from building a nuclear bomb and any extraneous issues — such as the release of U.S. prisoners or Iran’s support for Hezbollah and other terrorist activities — would only make the negotiations more difficult.
With the announcement of a nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, however, the administration is facing new pressure to try to free the U.S. hostages detained in Iran, including Amir Hekmati, a former Marine, Saeed Abedini, a Christian pastor, Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, and former FBI agent Robert Levinson, who disappeared in Iran after traveling there in 2007.
President Obama immediately bristled during a Wednesday press conference when a reporter asked him why he was “content” to tout the nuclear deal as historic victory when four Americans remain detained in Iran or have gone missing.
“The fact that I am content to celebrate with American citizens languishing in Iranian jails … that’s nonsense and you should know better,” Obama said sharply.
“I’ve met with the families of some of those folks,” he said. “Nobody’s content, and our diplomats and our teams are working diligent to try to get the out.”
Obama argued that he didn’t tie the negotiations to the prisoners’ release because he believed that would only lead the Iranians to ask for more serious concessions in return.
“Think about the logic that that creates. Suddenly, Iran realizes, you know what? Maybe we can get additional concessions out of the Americans by holding these individuals,” he continued. “Makes it much more difficult for us to walk away if Iran somehow thinks that a nuclear deal is dependent in some fashion on [their release].”
But even the top U.S. officials involved in brokering the deal argue that now that the negotiations are over, there’s no real leverage to help spring the hostages from captivity, and the U.S. is now relying on the good will of the Iranians to release them.
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After inking the deal early Tuesday, one administration official reported that Secretary of State John Kerry again talked to Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif about the prisoners’ release.
“We think that this is a moment where Iran has a really important opportunity to make a humanitarian gesture and bring the Americans home,” the official told reporters on the conference call, stressing that they should be released “immediately.”
Heeley, however, argues that any quick return of the prisoners is unrealistic based only on the nuclear deal.
“This is very much a nuclear agreement from Iran’s perspective as well — one they embarked upon because of their economic issues,” she said. “It does not signal a massive change in their behavior.”
“I can feasibly see them opening up the relationship but it won’t be until they gain more trust and that will take time,” she said.
Kroenig argues that it may be even more bleak for the U.S. than many think, since the U.S. appeared to show weakness in the nuclear talks, by agreeing to include extraneous issues like the easing of the conventional arms embargo. That could send the signal to Iran that there’s no need to make any concessions to the U.S., on any issue.
Kroenig said given that Iran was expanding the set of issues in the talks, the U.S. should have done the same thing, but missed the boat.
“Given how expansive Iran’s demands became in these negotiations, I see no reason that we shouldn’t have asked for these prisoners to be released,” he said.
