The Iranian regime last week allowed 85-year-old American Baquer Namazi to leave Iran, where he had been held hostage for more than seven years, to receive urgent medical treatment. The Biden administration welcomed the news — and, indeed, it is good news for Namazi and his family. But his son, Siamak, remains a hostage in Iran, alongside more than a dozen others from the U.S., Canada, France, Sweden, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the U.K., Australia and Belgium.
Their captors are hunting for their next human bargaining chip. More must be done to compel the release of all hostages. The best way to do so is by standing with the Iranian people who have put the regime on its heels.
Iranian society is being rocked by the largest sustained anti-government protests since 1979. Women and men from all walks of life have taken to the streets to demand an end to the regime’s criminality and gender discrimination after 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died in the custody of Iran’s so-called Morality Police. She was arrested and beaten for having strands of her hair peek out from beneath her government-mandated hijab. The regime has murdered at least 185 Iranians, including children, since the protests began on Sept. 17 and significantly restricted access to the internet.
I had a front-row seat to a nation that was on the cusp of a revolution while serving at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979. What I saw then — until being taken hostage myself — bears an eerie resemblance to what I’m watching unfold today in Iranian cities. It makes the regime’s decision to release Namazi particularly interesting and perhaps provides a window into how the regime is processing the threats it faces domestically and internationally.
After all, Namazi has been in declining health for quite some time. Iran showed no regard for his well-being in the years that he was held hostage and has not shown that it fears the deaths of its hostages. The regime held Robert Levinson hostage for the last 13 years of his life and continues to hold his body from his family in the U.S. more than two years after his presumed death.
Perhaps, as anti-regime protests spread across Europe and North America, Tehran fears that President Biden and his European counterparts will get cold feet about sending it hundreds of billions of dollars in sanctions relief, which is what Iran stands to gain if the Biden Administration and Tehran restore the nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Enriching Tehran would be a mistake for many reasons. The regime lies. It cheats. It supports and harbors terrorists. It takes hostages. It plots kidnappings and assassinations on foreign soil. And it is clearly unpopular and lacking legitimacy among a wide swath of Iranian society. This last point, some in Tehran might argue, could cause Washington to determine that sending a massive infusion of revenue that inevitably will be used to further repress the Iranian people is strategically unsound. Therefore, Iranian leaders have determined the pressure must be relieved — if not with an end to the protests than with a display of humanitarianism.
The Biden administration is clearly aware of the reality that paying a nuclear ransom will harm the Iranian people. Asked by reporters on Sept. 26 if the Biden administration is comfortable giving Iran “massive amount[s] of sanctions relief and allowing them to sell their oil on the open market when you know that some of that money is going to be used to commit human rights abuses,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price was unable to articulate a clear response and instead declared that both supporting Iranian people and reaching a nuclear deal with Iran are in the U.S. national interests. Unfortunately, the strategy that the U.S. and its European allies are pursuing frustrates both goals.
Now is the time for the U.S. and Europe to stand proudly and unapologetically, in word and in deed, with brave Iranians risking their lives and those who have given their lives. There should be broader application of human rights sanctions, and those sanctions should be coordinated between the U.S. and Europe. And it should be stated publicly that U.S. policy is not to lift any non-nuclear sanctions whatsoever, unless and until Iran ends its state sponsorship of terrorism, hostage taking, targeting of civilians abroad, and grotesque human rights abuses against its own people. Further, the U.S. and Europe should push the regime with strict sanctions enforcement, broad utilization of the tools available to apply enhanced economic pressure, and unambiguous support for the protesters.
The U.S. and Europe need to prepare for the coming days and weeks to be bloodier than the run-up to the Iranian Revolution — and to last longer, too. But we can win the moral high ground and move closer to our twin strategic aims by refusing to be taken in by token gestures, increasing the pressure at a moment of weakness and instability, and standing with the protesters who are on the right side of history by fighting for equality, human rights and the future of a nation that has tired of being brutalized from within.
Barry Rosen is a survivor of the 1979-1981 Iran hostage crisis, a senior adviser at United Against Nuclear Iran and a founding member of Hostage Aid Worldwide. Follow him on Twitter @brosen1501.