Once again the Iranian regime has been masquerading about the two young Americans it has taken hostage and using as bargaining chips. The show trial of Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer for allegedly being "spies," and the sentence of eight years in an Iranian prison, are yet further attempts to force the U.S. to give it what it wants.
The news, however, that an Iranian kangaroo court has given these hostages a 20 day window for appeal is a nudge and a wink at President Obama, running for his second term, that the ball is in his court and that he ought to just cave in to their demands – whatever they are this time around.
The Mullahs of Iran know that when their citizens are on the line, Americans are prone to give in; the Mullahs employ, therefore, countless lobbyists, disguised as proud and patriotic members of the Iranian-American community, who advise the Iranian regime's officials, receive advice from them, and relay the Mullahs' requests to Washington. Yet the American media, again, still bring "experts" to conduct guessing games about the Khomeini regime's next move.
Even though the regime has passed most of the burdens of the sanctions on to the average Iranian by cutting off the food subsidies that had always been provided to the people, the regime is isolated, and adamant about making sure that its military and terrorist funding is never reduced.
The Revolutionary Guards operate in black markets around the world; they are willing to pay any amount of petrodollars to complete their nuclear and chemical weapons.
Currently, they are doing business with China through the old fashioned "bartering" system: oil and gas for cheap Chinese junk and military arms.
The Revolutionary Guards want spare parts from the United States; what they cannot get through the black market, they get through blackmail and hostage-taking.
We tend to forget that the Khomeini foreign policy is based on terrorism, intimidation and extortion. Khomeini stood by the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) when the group took over the U.S. embassy in 1979. Even when Khomeini and the MEK's founder and leader Massod Rajavi clashed over the power and wealth in Iran, Khomeini who was the standing power, held onto the 52 American hostages for 444 days.
The American administration and the UN, meanwhile, are talking out of both sides of their mouths. On one side, they claim that they have the Iranian regime cornered through sanctions, but in reality what they have done is make it more expensive for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards to get their hands on the commodities they would like. And on the other side, they appoint the regime to the United Nations Committee on the Status of Women -- Iran, a country that counts a woman as half a man in its courts, and limit their rights in marriage divorce, child custody and inheritance.
Meanwhile, the American government continues its endless rounds of whirligig negotiations in the White House and the State Department -- advised by lobbyists loyal to the Iranian regime.
Iran is now being run by two factions of Shiite clergies, with Revolutionary Guard "heavies" to keep them in power. All they aim for is prolonging their dictatorship at any cost.
The Islamic Regime of the Mullahs of Iran never negotiates in good faith, or any kind of give-and-take. President Obama needed over two years to learn this fact. Young Iranians paid the price for it.
