
Hillary Clinton Backs Release of Hostages in Iran Despite Supporting Deal that Failed to Free Them
Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton’s campaign offered public support to the cause of freeing American hostages in Iran.

Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton’s campaign offered public support to the cause of freeing American hostages in Iran.

On November 4, 1979, Muslim student revolutionaries in the Islamic Republic of Iran took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and with it claimed 52 American citizens as hostages in what became a 444-day ordeal that would go on to grip America and the world.

Iran has taken another American citizen captive. On Tuesday, Iran’s state-owned IRIB news network announced that the regime had arrested Nizar Ahmad Zakka, a Lebanese-American from Riverside, California with alleged “deep ties” to the U.S. military and intelligence services on suspicion of espionage.

As the White House hails a breakthrough in its diplomatic effort to curb Iran’s nuclear program, several under-reported facts cast a shadow over any real, or imagined, success. President Obama’s assurance that “every pathway to a nuclear weapon is cut off” for Iran flies in the face of reality.

Last year, the Senate called on President Obama to “use the tools it has in pursuit of what should be a bipartisan goal: securing the release of American citizens being held as hostages by the regime in Iran.” Today, in the announcement of a nuclear deal with Iran that ignores the plight of these three hostages, the Obama administration has left behind a Christian preacher, a journalist, and a U.S. Marine.

A Persian-language news outlet reported this week that Iran has sentenced a group of 18 Christians to between one and ten years in prison each for organizing “house churches” and “propaganda against the regime.”

Iran’s “morality police” arrested nine Christians on Christmas Day, presumably for celebrating the seminal holiday, though authorities did not give reason for the arrest. Heavily armed agents transferred the nine people to an unnamed location.