Blogs For Victory

Is there any shred of national honor Obama won’t toss over the side?

The Obama administration has asked a federal judge to throw out a lawsuit against Iran filed by Americans held hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran 30 years ago.

The request comes in a $6.6 billion class-action lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Washington. Fifty-two American diplomats and military officials were held captive for more than a year at the end of Jimmy Carter’s presidency by a group of Islamist students who supported the Iranian revolution.

The hostages were released on Jan. 20, 1981, just minutes after Ronald Reagan was sworn in as the new president.

In court papers filed Tuesday night without any announcement, the Justice Department argued that the agreement to release the hostages, known as the Algiers Accords, precluded lawsuits against Iran.

A similar lawsuit brought by the Iranian hostages was dismissed in 2000 after the government successfully argued it was banned by the Algiers Accords. The hostages argue that legislation passed by Congress last year and signed into law by President George W. Bush gives them the right to bring private lawsuits.

But the Justice Department argued that the law does not mention the Algiers Accords, much less explicitly repeal them.

“The gratitude of the United States for the service and dedication of these brave individuals cannot be overstated, nor can the suffering and abuse they endured on behalf of this country be exaggerated; these matters are beyond dispute,” the Justice Department wrote in its filing.

The hostages argue that Iran supported their confinement and abuse, with visits from government officials, stays in government prisons and buildings and threats of trial in Iranian courts. The lawsuit says current Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was one of their interrogators.

The Algiers Accords were worked out on the last day of Jimmy Carter’s Presidency and were never ratified by the Senate nor otherwise enacted into US law, at least as far as I can determine. A Court case on the issue was resolved early on in that President Reagan agreed to void all legal actions pending against Iran in US courts as part of the Algiers Accords – such actions were transferred, per the Accords, to a arbitration tribunal. But from what I understand, this tribunal did not address itself to the issue of any personal claims the actual hostages had against their captors for physical and mental suffering. If your corporation was seized by the Iranian government, off to the tribunal you went…but if you were beaten nearly to death by terrorist goons, you had no place to go…except back to the US courts.

Be all that as it may, the fact that the Obama Administration would give this issue away shows how entirely clueless they are about the stakes involved here. The issue of compensation for the Americans held hostage is something which needs to be resolved – and it may very well be resolved through some general agreement between the United States and Iran…provided, that is, a dimwit of a President hasn’t already signed away the rights of Americans in order to curry favor with the miserable SOBs who govern Iran. Each President has an array of tools to use in dealing with foreign powers – no tool should be lightly cast aside. For everything we give up, we should gain something and/or get the other side to give or give up something. Obama doesn’t understand this rather basic aspect of the diplomacy he claims will make the world a better place.

A President also only gets a certain number of mistakes before he’s written off as a fool in the international community. Obama has already made a score or more such mistakes and the on thing he’s done right – sending that destroy to contest China’s claims in the South China Sea – isn’t as important as the bone headed mistakes he’s been making since day one. Our liberal friends were upset that under Bush Europeans disliked us. Well, I’d rather have Bush disliked but feared as opposed to Obama liked but held in contempt.