(12-08-2022, 07:43 PM)mikesez Wrote:

(12-08-2022, 07:00 PM)JagsorDie Wrote: I guess my question is; if that was the only deal available and we just played our best hand to get a [BLEEP] basketball player on a puffed up drug charge back, what could we possibly have to give to get Paul back now? We just handed over one of the worlds most wanted criminal/terrorists. What other cards do have…. As far as people, None to my knowledge. So now what? we start bending on policies to try and gain leverage. This was [BLEEP] stupid at best.

There's still plenty.  Lots of bank accounts that could conceivably be unfrozen.  A state department official could unequivocally say that some or all of Crimea is Russian.  Russia won't stop having things it would like for the US to do, not in our lifetimes.  The question for us is always the same: does making that deal incentivize them to arrest more of our people? 
And remember, whether it was due to concern about precedent, or just plain lack of care, Trump also failed to get Paul Whelan back.

"What do I know of cultured ways, the gilt, the craft and the lie? I, who was born in a naked land and bred in the open sky. The subtle tongue, the sophist guile, they fail when the broadswords sing; Rush in and die, dogs - I was a man before I was a king."