I guess we know now that each person cost about $1,200,000,000
Still better than Reagan’s deal to swap hostages for weapons though
Maybe one or more of them were spies and their intel was worth that much
I thought the US government had a policy against paying ransoms. But we did it with the basketball player in Russia, too This will come back to haunt us because it clearly communicated to terrorist organizations (even if they are governments of foreign nations) that the US will pay you if you threaten enough citizens.
Iran is a sovereign state. If we fear their actions, we use diplomacy, not indefinite detention of their people. This isn’t Al Qaeda or ISIS or something.
This has happened before: Iran has taken American-Iranians hostage and demanded a ransom. A Democrat president paid the ransom and justified the payment somehow to silence those who opposed giving in to a terrorist regime and funding their activities.