WarSclerotic

Instead, Obama announced the payment in generic terms, further smoothing over the implications by using the passive voice: “Iran will be returned its own funds, including appropriate interest, but much less than the amount sought.”

To the extent Obama used his high-profile podium to name any particular sum, he mentioned not the payout, but his rough estimate, purely hypothetical, that this deal might ultimately save America money. He said (the italics, highlighting the speculative nature of his statement, are mine): “For the United States, this settlement could save us billions of dollars that could have been pursued by Iran.” Obama then used that bait-and-switch bit of guesswork about “billions” in savings to justify the timing: “So there was no benefit to the United States in dragging this out.”

Actually, it’s far from clear that there would have been no benefit to dragging out any settlement. Four previous American presidents had already dragged it out, quite rightly postponing the day that terror-sponsoring Iran might get its hands on a payout. But not Obama.

Obama deflected to Secretary of State John Kerry the job of handling the public “messaging” about the actual sum the U.S. had agreed to pay Iran, which totalled $1.7 billion. On that same day of Obama’s statement, and Iran’s prisoner release, Jan. 17, Kerry put out a press statement saying the U.S. and Iran had settled a dispute over roughly $400 million paid by Iran long ago, under the Shah, for a U.S. arms deal that fell through after Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution. Kerry described the agreement as if it were relatively routine, saying it was: “the latest in a series of important settlements reached over the past 35 years at the Hague Tribunal.” Citing “litigation risk” as the reason the Obama administration had chosen to settle this dispute that dated back well over three decades, Kerry said Iran would receive the $400 million plus “a roughly $1.3 billion compromise on the interest.”

Like Obama, Kerry made no mention of how or when or where any payment might take place. Instead, the Obama administration stonewalled relevant questions from Congress and the press, for months.

Finally, this week, The Wall Street Journal’s Jay Solomon and Carole E. Lee  broke the news of the secret Obama-approved cash airlift in mid-January to Iran. Their story included such details as the U.S. government swapping $400 million U.S. dollars into euros, Swiss francs and other currency via the Dutch and Swiss central banks, loading the cash on pallets and flying the loot to Tehran’s Mehrabad Airport aboard an unmarked cargo plane. The Journal cited a report from an Iranian news site close to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Tasnim agency, which said the cash arrived on the same day the American prisoners left, Jan. 17.

Forced to admit that the cash shipment took place, the Obama administration now appears to be having great difficulties locating information on what time the cargo plane landed in Tehran — before or after the American prisoners took off? Asked about this at a press briefing on Thursday, State Department spokesman Mark Toner replied: “I don’t believe we’ve gotten clarity on that.”

There’s also no clarity to date on how the Obama administration handled the payout to Iran of the additional $1.3 billion in interest. On Thursday The Wall Street Journal reported that “Administration officials said the remaining $1.3 billion was later paid out of a fund used to pay judgments and settlements of claims against the U.S.”  But the Journal story included no information on how or when the U.S. made that additional payment, most likely because the administration won’t say. Also this Thursday, the New York Times reported: “White House officials have declined to say whether the rest of the $1.7 billion payment (including $1.3 billion in interest) was also made in cash.”

Where does that leave us?

1. For all Obama’s denials and derision of his critics, the $400 million payment in January sure looks like a ransom, a cash-for-captives deal that can only encourage Iran to imprison more Americans — which it has already done.

2. If indeed there was a quid pro quo, and if the Iranians have any evidence of that, then Obama’s denial that he paid any ransom opens the door to Iranian blackmail of the administration over this payola.

3. The U.S. airlift of cash to Tehran quite likely sends a signal to the world that those strict U.S. sanctions need not deter others from airlifting into Iran crates, or pallets, of cash, which can then be used for Iran’s terrorist and military ventures. The U.S. government itself has set the example.

4. If there was nothing wrong with Obama’s $1.7 billion settlement with Iran, and his administration’s handling of the payments, then why won’t his office provide full information about the logistics, for both the $400 million and the additional $1.3 billion, and answer in good faith the questions of Congress and the press?

5. Finally, there’s the ugly matter of Obama belittling anyone who might question or criticize his cash payola for Iran. That shows an utter disregard for his own promises of transparency, and gross disrespect for the American public. It’s terrible policy for an American president to secretly ship $400 million — or is it by now $1.7 billion? — worth of cash to the terror-sponsoring ballistic-missile-testing Islamic Republic of Iran. It’s even worse when the president, caught out by the press, chooses to defend himself by denigrating the reporters, and his fellow citizens generally, as sensation-seeking fools. The best retort by now, no matter what the presidential mockery, is don’t stop following the money.