Do you believe North Korea

[mike499]

Big difference. Trump didn't make the Iran deal. North Korea's deal will be HIS baby.

Agree

[Heartman]

Trump is a lying sack of shit.

[sleepy]

It's going to be great seeing you fuks cry when this prikk gets impeached.

[sports j]

Sounds like north korea will release their 3 american "hostages" any time now, weasels like obama begged for years, trump gets it done without even asking. He is the best president ever.

every president has got hostages released trump didnt do anything special

[mikeman]

every president has got hostages released trump didnt do anything special

But trump didn't have to send pallets of cash, did he?

[sports j]

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FINANCE

5 Things You Need to Know About the $400 Million America Sent to Iran

 

SHAWN TULLY

AUG 5, 2016 3:43 PM EDT

 

 

 

On January 17, the same day five American hostages were released from custody in Iran, a jetliner dispatched from the U.S. delivered $400 million in cash to Tehran’s Mehrabad Airport. Heightening the air of skulduggery, Iranian guards unloaded pallets loaded not with U.S. dollars but Swiss francs, euros and other foreign currencies.

 

 

The shipment was a secret until The Wall Street Journal broke the story on August 2. Since then, Republicans from Donald Trump to Paul Ryan have assailed the White House for paying a gigantic ransom when government-paid ransom is barred under U.S. law, and for hiding the ploy from a public already highly skeptical of the U.S.-Iran nuclear agreement. President Obama denied the payment to Tehran was a ransom. The White House contends the payment simply settled a decades-long financial dispute, and that the settlement was fully disclosed in January—although at the time, officials made no mention that the $400 million arrived in Iran the same as the hostages were freed, a confluence of events bound to arouse suspicion.

 

So what are the facts, as opposed to the spin, behind the $400 million controversy?

 

 

What’s Behind the Financial Dispute Between the U.S. and Iran?

In November 1979, Iran’s revolutionary government took 52 Americans hostages at the U.S. embassy, and the U.S. severed diplomatic relations with Tehran. In retaliation, Washington froze $12 billion in Iranian assets held on our shores. The hostage crisis was resolved in 1981 at a conference in Algiers, and the U.S. returned $3 billion to Iran, with more funds going either to pay creditors, or into escrow. The two nations also established a tribunal in the Hague called the Iran United States Claims Tribunal to settle claims both leveled by each government against the other, U.S. citizens versus Iran, and vice versa.

 

 

The major issue between the two governments was a $400 million payment for military equipment made by the government of the Shah of Iran, prior to the 1979 uprising that topped him. The U.S. banned delivery of the jets and other weapons amid the hostage crisis, but froze the $400 million advance payment. “The Pentagon handled arms purchases from foreign countries,” says Gary Sick, a former National Security Council official who served as the principal White House aide for Iran during the Iranian Revolution and the hostage crisis. “Defense took care of the details. So the $400 million scheduled purchase was a government-to-government transaction. The U.S. government was holding the money. That’s why it was so difficult to resolve.”

 

By 2015, the issue stood before a panel of nine judges, including three independent jurists, who were reportedly near a decision on binding arbitration. According to Obama administration officials, the U.S. was concerned that the tribunal would mandate an award in the multiple billions of dollars. “The Iranians wanted $10 billion,” says Sick.”I estimate that the tribunal would have awarded them $4 billion. That’s what the lawyers were saying. It’s not as much as they wanted, but a lot more than we paid.”

 

So instead, the U.S. negotiators convinced Iran to move the dispute from arbitration to a private settlement. The two sides reached an agreement in mid-2015, at the same time as the U.S. and Iran reached a comprehensive pact on curtailing Iran’s development of nuclear weapons. The financial deal called for the U.S. to refund $1.7 billion to Tehran, consisting of the original $400 million contract for military equipment, plus $1.3 billion in interest.

 

 

What Did the White House Say About the $400 Million…and When Did They Say It?

The U.S. announced the controversial nuclear deal with Iran on July 13, 2015. At a news conference on January 16, President Obama declared that the U.S. was lifting the first raft of sanctions against Iran. He also stated that the U.S. would return $1.7 billion to Iran, as agreed in the negotiations at the Hague. That same day, Tehran released the U.S. hostages, and the U.S. freed seven Iranians detained for violating financial and other U.S. sanctions on their home country. Hence, the return of the five Americans appeared to be one side of a prisoner exchange with Tehran.

 

But Obama didn’t mention that the same day, $400 million was being shipped over 6000 miles for deposit in Iran’s treasury. “Normally you’d use a bank transfer,” says Sick. “But Congress banned dollar transfers to Iran, so the government had to find another way. So they bought foreign currency, and transferred it in cash.”

 

Why the $400 Million Wasn’t Ransom

The deal’s defenders insist that the financial negotiations were totally separate from both the nuclear deal and the hostage talks, and were led by three separate teams. It’s impossible to verify or refute that information.

 

A stronger argument is that the U.S. had to make a big payment to Iran because of a 35-year-old deal for weapons that were never received. It wasn’t a matter of if, but when and how much. Washington was worried that the tribunal would impose a payment of several billion dollars, as Tehran demanded, and grabbed the opportunity to settle for the $1.7 billion as part of a overall pact at the same time Iran was benefiting from the nuclear agreement.

 

 

It’s also reasonable to ask why Iran would release hostages in exchange for $400 million, when—according to the deal’s defenders—it was bound to get at least that amount from the Hague anyway, and could keep the hostages to boot. Of course, it’s impossible to verify if Tehran was truly convinced a bigger, though later, settlement was likely. Still, it’s clear that the payout from the $400 million dispute was coming, and would happen with or without a release of hostages.

 

“This was not a quid pro quo for hostages,” says Barbara Slavin, acting director of the Future of Iran Initiative at the Atlantic Council. “It was an opportunity for countries with no diplomatic relations to clear away a number of diplomatic disputes. For the U.S, it was important to get back the detained Americans, and the Iranians wanted their seven citizens out of jail.”

 

Slavin adds that most of the recent coverage of the U.S.-Iran dealings ignores the importance of the prisoner exchange.

 

According to Sick: “It was all taken care of at the same time, through separate channels. It was a good deal for U.S. taxpayers, the U.S. obeyed the law, and the payment was always going to happen anyway.”

 

If It Walks Like a Duck…

The Iranian press and military enthusiastically spun the payment as ransom, and more proof of how Tehran had rolled the U.S. in the nuclear talks.

 

 

Most of all, the tale of cash going one way and prisoners the other, all on the same day, just doesn’t look right. The suspicion is that the teams working on the financial, hostage and weapons negotiations did indeed collaborate, and that the hostage release was the essential sweetener needed to clinch the highly controversial nuclear agreement that’s a pillar of Obama’s legacy.

 

The “sweetener” view may have some validity. Sick concedes that the deal did “let the Iranian hardliners say they got something in the nuclear deal. Iran was happy to get the cash back. Perhaps that made it easier for them to give up the prisoners, I don’t know.” He doesn’t believe the three teams of negotiators were working together. “The negotiations for the hostages were totally separate channels, and handled by the Swiss,” he says.

 

For more on Iran, watch this Fortune video:

 

“The optics do look bad, and the timing was awkward,” says Slavin, a supporter of the nuclear agreement. “But it wasn’t a package deal.”

 

 

History Will Judge

The dispute indeed hands the Republicans a bludgeon in the presidential campaign. But its most important legacy relates to future hostage-taking and terrorism. The Iranian government may well interpret the chapter not as the resolution to a decades-old financial dispute, but as a capitulation to ransom. If so, why not capture more hostages, and collect more millions from the cowardly Americans?

 

“It wasn’t a quid pro quo, but that’s the way the Iranians may have interpreted it,” concludes Slavin. “The Iranians arrest people for no reason. It doesn’t help that three Americans are still in Iranian jails. I understand that it could encourage more hostage-taking.”

 

Slavin still insists that the U.S. did the right thing settling a financial issue that was festering for over three decades. Indeed, America’s motives were probably justifiable, though the optics are anything but good. In the future, it will be whether Iran views the affair as either a favorable business deal or an incentive to take more hostages that will determine whether this longstanding sponsor of terrorism rejoins the community of nations.

 

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[sports j]

But trump didn't have to send pallets of cash, did he?

he prefers recieving pallets of cash from russia and pallets of cash given to pornstars

[RudyRuder]

Trump keeps winning!!!!!!!!!!

[rito]

Sounds like north korea will release their 3 american "hostages" any time now, weasels like obama begged for years, trump gets it done without even asking. He is the best president ever.

Obama begged for release of the two that were taken after Trump became president?

[mikeman]

he prefers recieving pallets of cash from russia and pallets of cash given to pornstars

Such bitterness, it must hurt bad seeing trump succeed at almost everything, along with his popularity growing? The more the libs and media piss, moan, and express outrage, the stronger he gets.

 

You would think they would have learned from the campaign that smearing a man like trump with fake sex scandals, doesn't and wont work, but apparently not?

[sports j]

Such bitterness, it must hurt bad seeing trump succeed at almost everything, along with his popularity growing? The more the libs and media piss, moan, and express outrage, the stronger he gets.

 

You would think they would have learned from the campaign that smearing a man like trump with fake sex scandals, doesn't and wont work, but apparently not?

one could say the same thing about trump trying to smear obama except he was proven to be a liar

[RDTrains]

President Spanky cancels summit. Nobel Piece Prize on hold.

Sad!

[KingRevolver]

Jung-Un trolling the hell out of Trump. Playing him like a fool.

[sports j]

just like i said nothin would happen

[Guest ConspiracyMuncher]

wany new developments on this?

 

N Korea is too broke, should cut the shit

[Balco]

Jung-Un trolling the hell out of Trump. Playing him like a fool.

This makes you sound really really dumb.

[Balco]

Knew you couldn’t trust Jung Un. He was playing games about destroying nuclear sites. LOL

[mikeman]

This makes you sound really really dumb.

Anyone ever met a smart mexican? Hard working, sure, smart, no.

[Machiavelli]

You can tell that Trump still wants a meeting based on the letter. 

 

However, he was pissed when VP Pence was dissed and so made a strong move. 

 

But to think that this was done without an eye at drawing them back to the negotiating table is naive, imo. President Trump wants a deal---just on his terms. And this is part of his tactics. 

[mikeman]

You can tell that Trump still wants a meeting based on the letter. 

 

However, he was pissed when VP Pence was dissed and so made a strong move. 

 

But to think that this was done without an eye at drawing them back to the negotiating table is naive, imo. President Trump wants a deal---just on his terms. And this is part of his tactics. 

Supposedly there were supposed to be meetings and contacts to hammer out the basic details of how the summit would take place, the US asked NK several times to begin the process and got no response at all. So that's that, no sense having a meeting if it's all games. A fair chance trump would fly all the way to singapore and Kim wouldn't show up. Too bad, so sad.

[Machiavelli]

It's smart for him to be on the offense and not the defense, so acting now instead of waiting has him in a stronger position, imo. 

 

But you can still tell that Trump wants everything to happen. He's just hoping this forces NK to be more serious and talk nice throughout the process.

[sports j]

It's smart for him to be on the offense and not the defense, so acting now instead of waiting has him in a stronger position, imo.

 

But you can still tell that Trump wants everything to happen. He's just hoping this forces NK to be more serious and talk nice throughout the process.

he was never goin to do it he was playing games with trump as n. korea has done to the us throughout presidency only trump would and his followers would believe him

[WVU]

we got our hostages back and N Korea blew up their own nuclear production facility.  Sounds like the good ole US is winning.

[sleepy]

President Spanky cancels summit. Nobel Piece Prize on hold.

Sad!

 

obama could have got us a working agreement but this fuk has to have everything and like i said all along jong told him to go fukk himself

 

hopefully jong sends an assassination team over to fuk his ass up

[mike499]

Anyone ever met a smart mexican? Hard working, sure, smart, no.

Ouch