The Debate Over ‘Ransom’ And Leverage Is Another Issue Republicans Intend To Waste The Rest Of The Year On

One of the dominating stories over the past few weeks has been over whether the Obama administration giving the Iranian government $400 million dollars was a ransom for five American prisoners, or if it was leverage.

Being that most people are familiar with the word “ransom,” over leverage, it’s easy to understand why ransom is the more popular definition to result from the debate, and perhaps the single reason it’s taken hold in people’s mindset.

It’s especially obvious that those driving that “hard line” are in fact congressional Republicans, who are already promising to launch an investigation into the matter when they come back from their seven-week vacation.

In last Friday’s edition of the International news round-up on The Diane Rehm Show, one caller said that they were offended by Yochi Dreazon’s assertion that it was a ransom payment, and how the administration had frustratingly been trying to redefine it.

"Even in his apology, it's falsehood, falsehood, falsehood," @yochidreazen says of today's #LochMess development https://t.co/mxgSKg288Z

— Diane Rehm: On My Mind (@drshow) August 19, 2016

Dreazon, who is the managing editor for Foreign Policy Magazine, and Shawn Donnan of The International Times went at it again to defend the statement, also adding in the end that even the hardliners in Iran referred to it as ransom.

It’s been known that the U.S. government does not pay ransom for Americans — especially if they are hostages. But the other side of this is, how does Iran release American prisoners?

Mike Huckabee has said that they were not tried to be prisoners. But a country such as Iran holding Americans, tried or not, would never be considered prisoners in the eyes of Republicans. They would always be considered hostages, so calling it a ransom is only coming from that side of the aisle out of bias.

In a situation where money was not paid, leverage would rely on fear that the U.S. would retaliate. Should Iran be so intimidated by the U.S. that crippling fear would prevent them from even thinking about holding an American overnight? Surely, this is the dream of the hard-right, that a country such as Iran should be shaking in their boots for holding any American.

Congressional Republicans are angry because the kind of leverage they’re upset the administration is not using is leverage that touts exceptionalism. Diplomacy clearly would have no place in a Republican administration should Donald Trump seize the presidency. But by that alone, Iran should release those prisoners; or war would be declared.

The hardliners in Congress would only be so proud to face their adversaries in the Iranian parliament over these kinds of disagreements, who are likely finding the debate amusing.

But the debate over whether the payment was a ransom or leverage continued into the beginning of this week with White House press secretary Josh Earnest, when he went back and forth with a few journalists about the difference.

The journalist — as seen in the video at the beginning of this piece — pushed hard on Earnest, trying to make him provide a single answer as to why the exchange was not a ransom, which the press secretary could not, or would not, do.

What everyone has agreed to, however — some on the right far more reluctantly than the rest — is that the payment was owed to Iran for decades. The debate is much shadier when it comes to the prisoners.

At least one pundit in the fog of this debate has said that the difference between a ransom and leverage is that “ransom” is to pay money that belongs to the person paying it, not to the person it is being paid to.

A deafening confirmation, but one that those who already oppose the administration are not willing to hear; after all, this is an election year.

The issue among the Iranians is over the regime’s overt and systematic oppression. Further from that are the human rights abuses and how much of the U.S.’ Iran deal is there to quell them, but this is not what the Republican-led Congress is pitching.

Rather, the hardliners in Congress are against Iran over older conflicts, handed down through history over different moral obligations they claim to hold over the regime. This is simply a mask that’s been thrown together, to cover up the fact that this is entirely a political game, for which they’ve exhumed ghosts from the past, just to look for any reason — such as arguing ransom and leverage — in order to oppose the Iran deal.

[Photo by Susan Walsh/AP Images]