Negotiating with Iran can be the diplomatic equivalent of a day-long migraine. While Iran policy often strikes a chord in Washington, DC, people across the political spectrum come together on this basic proposition: the Iranians are some of the best hagglers on the planet. Wendy Sherman, a career US diplomat who played a major part in negotiating the now-defunct Iran nuclear deal, referred to the Iranians as legendary for their skill at the bargaining table. Donald Trump alluded to their skill, too: “[T]]he Iranians, frankly, are great negotiators,” he said in 2016. And former ambassador (and now CIA Director) William Burns commented the same year, “The Iranians are very skilled negotiators, very tough.”
Yet sometimes the United States doesn’t have much choice but to sit down at the table with this most historic of adversaries. Sometimes the negotiation fails, but on rare occasions it succeeds.
After a long on-again, off-again negotiation with Tehran over a prisoner exchange, five Americans are now on their way back to the United States. This includes Siamak Namazi, who endured hellish conditions in the infamous Evin prison for nearly eight years after his conviction on spurious espionage charges. In exchange, five Iranians were released from US detention on sanctions violations, while about $6 billion of Tehran’s money will be unfrozen and sent to a bank in Qatar to help pay for non-sanctioned goods.
For the Biden White House, this is a day to celebrate. Yet a good chunk of Washington is beside itself. Weeks before the Americans reached Qatari soil on their way stateside, Republican lawmakers were aghast that the White House would, in their interpretation, pay the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism to get Americans out of jail. Senator Tom Cotton slammed Biden for “appeasement and total failure of leadership” while Representative Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, all but implied that Biden was feeding resources into Iran’s nuclear program. Trump, true to form, hinted Biden was senile for green-lighting the trade. “Our grossly incompetent ‘leader,’ Crooked Joe Biden, gave 6 BILLION DOLLARS for 5 people,” he wrote on Truth Social. “Iran gave ZERO for 5. He’s Dumb as a Rock.”
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