Kerry defends cash payment in wake of Iran deal

[DonViejo]

Source: Associated Press

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Secretary of State John Kerry says a $400 million cash payment sent to Iran when a nuclear deal was reached and four Americans were released was not a ransom payment.

Kerry says the payment was part of a separately negotiated claim by the Iranian government dating to the early 1980s.

Kerry says the cash, along with $1.3 billion in interest, was part of a dispute involving a military equipment sale to the since-deposed shah of Iran. Several Americans held in Iranian prisons were released as part of a swap at the same time.

Kerry also says he is unaware of any video showing the arrival of a pallet of cash in Iran, which Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump cited at a rally on Wednesday. Kerry is traveling in Argentina.

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Read more: http://www.salon.com/2016/08/04/kerry_defends_cash_payment_in_wake_of_iran_deal/

[Native]

1. After they worked so hard to trash Hillary, it just kills me to click on Salon for anything!

But I did.

[LisaM]

2. More headline nonsense....

It should say "Kerry Explains Cash Payment...."

[BlueMTexpat]

7. + a million! eom

[emulatorloo]

8. Yes and thanks for pointing that out

[LisaM]

12. I could write a book on misleading headlines these days. n/t

[Skittles]

9. it sure sounds like a bribe to me

[B2G]

3. If they had just waited a month, this wouldn't be a discussion.

We've had their money since 1979. Waited WEEK, even.

[karynnj]

4. This was done in JANUARY and it was one of many

Negotiations done around the time that the Iran deal was finalized, after Iran sent out enriched uranium and made a plutonium reactor unusable.

Note that deal was one of three foreign policy successes Clinton spoke of as thinks "we" did that were important. She was correct.

The Republicans are trying hard both to make the Iran deal a negative and to have a democratic controversy to replace the Trump negatives.

If they succeed even slightly on the first, I hope the October surprise is that Kerry or Obama get the Nobel Prize and the significance is explained tothe US.

[Leontius]

5. Okay, we know the official line and Kerry must defend it.

We also know it was a bribe, money well spent to degrade Iranian ability to go nuclear weapons capable, but a bribe none the less.

[BlueMTexpat]

6. NOT. A. BRIBE!!!!! This was Iran's money in the first place.

You need to educate yourself about the whole situation.

Try starting here for a recent report that is factual for the most part. http://www.vox.com/2016/8/4/12370848/ransom-iran-400-million

Then here (from 1981!!!!!): http://www.nytimes.com/1981/01/20/world/text-of-agreement-between-iran-and-the-us-to-resolve-the-hostage-situation.html?pagewanted=all

Then try this: http://www.iusct.net/

And this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algiers_Accords

There are so many Americans whose attention span seems to include only the last five minutes with no sense of history or context. This is a controversy dating back to the Iran hostage crisis of 1979. After the Iranians basically held the US hostages to the last minute literally to spit in Jimmy Carter's face after helping to enable Reagan's election, St. Ronnie basically stiffed them by not honoring parts of the settlement agreement - leaving yet another thing for Democrats to clean up 35 years later.

No one was talking about Iranian nuclear weapons in 1979.

[Skittles]

10. I'll bite

did they release a statement to that effect before this news broke? Since it wasn't a secret, they say.

[BlueMTexpat]

11. I'm not sure what you're "biting" on ...

do you actually believe this RW B***S***? If you do, nothing I can say will help, I'm afraid.

The WSJ actually published a similar story back in January 2016. I guess it decided that it was time to stir the pot again.

Did you even read the Vox link I posted? Here's another:

Yeah, About That 'Mysterious' $400 Million...
The Stupid is spreading.
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a47304/iran-400-million-prisoners/

Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran lost his job in 1979. He died a year later in Cairo. That's 37 years ago, if you're keeping score at home. For 37 years, the United States and Iran have been dickering at the Hague over the settlement of an arms deal that this country cut with the Shah when he was our boy in that part of the world. (Saddam Hussein was our boy, too. Life was complicated back then.)

In January, possibly because everybody involved got tired of windmills and tulips and really good beer, the two countries finally settled matters. As Agence France-Presse reported at the time, the U.S. agreed to pay $400 million in cash and $1.3 billion in interest to settle the claim first filed on behalf of a government that had been overthrown for nearly four decades.

The repayment, which settles a suit brought under an international legal tribunal, is separate from the tens of billions of dollars in frozen foreign accounts that Iran can now access after the end of nuclear sanctions. But the timing of the announcement, one day after the implementation of the Iran nuclear accord, will be seen as pointing to a broader clearing of the decks between the old foes. US President Barack Obama defended the settlement in a televised statement from the White House, saying it was for "much less than the amount Iran sought." "For the United States, the settlement could save us billions of dollars that could have been pursued by Iran. There was no benefit to the United States in dragging this out," he said.

Just so you know, I actually appeared before the Iran-US Claims Tribunal myself on behalf of the US on two occasions. Individual and corporate claims arising from the break-up in diplomatic relations following the 1979 hostage-taking have for the most part all either been litigated or settled. Everyone with any knowledge of the goings-on at the Tribunal has known for years that the ONLY way that the biggest remaining issues between the US and Iran would be resolved was by political settlement. We could continue to argue "cosmic theoretical law" for eternity and nothing would change.

Had this been resolved MUCH earlier, the US would not have had to pay USD 1.3 billion in interest. We can all thank St. Ronnie for not implementing the terms of the Algiers Accords with respect to these monies for that extra expense.

Prez O did the right thing. Finally. But it would likely have been political suicide before our relations with Iran improved.

ANY DUer who continues to make an issue out of this non-issue - just as too many gleefully jumped on every Hillary non-scandal "scandal" bandwagon will go straight to my Ignore List.

[Skittles]

13. I asked a simple question

when the payment was made, did they SAY what it was for? That it was for making amends? And I do NOT jump on "bandwagon scandals". Why are you so freaking hyped. IT'S A SIMPLE QUESTION.