What About the Next American Hostages?

After paying $6 billion to Iran, how will Biden prevent future ransom grabs?

By The Editorial Board

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks at a news conference as he announces that five Americans who had been jailed for years in Iran have been freed, in New York on Monday. PHOTO: POOL/VIA REUTERS

The Biden Administration was out in force on Monday to celebrate the return home of seven American citizens from Iran, five of whom had been in prison. We can all be grateful for their freedom, but the question we wish U.S. policy markers would do more to address is how they will prevent the next hostage-taking by a rogue regime.

“To date, under this administration, we have now brought 30 Americans home from places around the world where they were being unjustly detained. That work will continue,” said Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

He added that, “At the same time, we’re going to be working every single day to take steps to make this practice more and more difficult and more and more of a burden on those countries that engage in it. And you’ll see in the days ahead here in New York, at the United Nations, our efforts to work with other countries to do just that.”

Let’s hope so, because there’s no doubt that paying $6 billion for seven Americans will encourage more such hostage-taking. Iran has paid no price for imprisoning Americans and has now been paid ransom for them. Iran snatched a couple of the Americans not long after the last hostage trade with the U.S. It’s part of Tehran’s business model, and it works.

It’s also insulting to read in that Washington Post that White House National Security Council official Brett McGurk says that “under terms that provide confidence, the funds will be spent only on a limited category of humanitarian trade: food, medicine and agricultural products. That’s it.”

He may be technically right about those specific funds. But that leaves the Tehran regime able to devote other funds they would have spent on those goods for such malevolent purposes as terrorism by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

President Biden, in his statement, warned Americans not to travel to Iran, but the U.S. should be firmer and say that Americans who travel there do so at their own risk. That includes dual U.S.-Iran citizens. No ransom will be paid in the future for their release.

The U.S. and its allies will also have to make clear that Iran and other countries will pay a steep price for taking American hostages. The response can include diplomatic steps such as expelling Iranian diplomats, imposing economic sanctions, and harsher forms of retribution against Iranian assets and officials.

Rogue regimes and thugs will keep snatching and imprisoning Americans until they fear that the risks of doing so are greater than the ransom they seek.