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The_Anchorman · 08-06-2016, 09:50 AM

Almost immediately after the $1.7 billion deal was announced, critics began suggesting that all was not as it seemed. The timing of the decades-old weapons payment settlement and the hostage release suggested that it wasn’t just a settlement on a legal issue — it was a ransom payment.

"A deal that sent $1.7 billion in U.S. funds to Iran, announced alongside the freeing of five Americans from Iranian jails, has emerged as a new flashpoint amid a claim in Tehran that the transaction amounted to a ransom payment," the Wall Street Journal’s Jay Solomon, who also co-wrote the recent piece that broke the $400 million payment story, reported at the time.

But there was no direct evidence to back up this theory. The speculation about timing was just that — speculation.

Moreover, the basic logic of it didn’t make any sense. Iran was going to get that money back no matter what through the arbitration process — probably more, if the Obama administration was right. Why would it release potentially valuable hostages in exchange for money it would have gotten otherwise? Iran would have to be the world’s dumbest hostage taker.

The August Wall Street Journal piece, written by Solomon and Carol Lee, attempted to resolve these questions. It uncovered that the first $400 million payment, which was part of the $1.7 billion total settlement, happened on the same day as the hostage release — and that the Obama administration clearly chose not to include that particular fact in its announcement back in January.

That’s suggestive of a link between the hostage negotiations and the weapons settlement, but it’s hardly conclusive.

Beyond that, the WSJ report contained two real pieces of evidence suggesting that the arms deal payment was actually ransom.

First, Iranian negotiators involved in the prisoner exchange allegedly linked the two: "US officials also acknowledge that Iranian negotiators on the prisoner exchange said they wanted the cash to show they had gained something tangible," Solomon and Lee report.

But the Iranian negotiators on the prisoner exchange were not the same negotiatorsinvolved in the weapons deal settlement. Therefore, they couldn’t make demands of the US team negotiating the weapons deal settlement, which means they couldn’t negotiate a quid pro quo of money for hostage release, the definition of a ransom.

So even if this report is true — and you should always be skeptical of anonymous unquoted references to "US officials" — the Iranians would have gotten the money no matter what.

The second piece of evidence for the payment being a ransom is that the Iranians spun it that way. "Iranian press reports have quoted senior Iranian defense officials describing the cash as a ransom payment," write Solomon and Lee.

But of course Iranian officials would spin it as a hostage payment. This makes them look strong to their domestic audience and America look weak. We don’t take political spin from American officials at face value, so we shouldn’t take Iranian spin at face value either — especially when it’s contradicted by independent evidence.

One could make the argument, I suppose, that the timing was a form of ransom. By delivering the payment on the same day as the prisoner release, Iranian officials could claim that they got the money as part of a ransom deal.

But the truth is that the Iranians could have claimed that no matter when the cash was delivered. If the Obama administration had forked over $400 million six months later, those same Iranian defense officials could have lied and said it was part of the prisoner release deal rather than the weapons settlement.

The lie isn’t significantly more credible just because the cash was delivered on the same day. Nor should American media and politicians help validate the Iranian lie by treating Iranian propaganda as actual evidence.

The bottom line, then, is that the new Wall Street Journal piece uncovers no real evidence suggesting that the US agreed to give Iran money that it wouldn’t have gotten otherwiseas part of the hostage release deal. There’s smoke here, but no fire.