WSJ Editorial: Iran, Its Hostages and the West
Iran's big news yesterday is that the government will formally kill five people who participated in June's pro-democracy rallies. Consider, though, the implications for the West's peace-brokers of the case of Frenchwoman Clotilde Reiss...
... In its 30 years, the Islamic Republic has used assassination squads, fatwas, terrorism and hostage-taking as tools of its war with the West. A nearly unbroken string of outrages connects the taking of the U.S. embassy in 1979 to the death sentence demanded for writer Salman Rushdie in 1989 to, more recently, the grabbing of British sailors in 2007. Add to that the detention and trial of Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi earlier this year, the 12-year prison sentence meted last month to Iranian-American scholar Kian Tajbakshsh and, most recently, the charges of espionage leveled against the three American backpackers who stumbled across the Iranian border in July...
... For too long the West has responded to these various outrages by offering Iran little more than meek compliance, plus a clean slate the moment any one crisis is resolved. Now President Barack Obama is again beseeching Iran to take the nuclear deal offered to it last month. Nobody should expect Iran's leaders to show good faith. Not when their days are spent executing protestors and abusing the likes of Clotilde Reiss.
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... In its 30 years, the Islamic Republic has used assassination squads, fatwas, terrorism and hostage-taking as tools of its war with the West. A nearly unbroken string of outrages connects the taking of the U.S. embassy in 1979 to the death sentence demanded for writer Salman Rushdie in 1989 to, more recently, the grabbing of British sailors in 2007. Add to that the detention and trial of Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi earlier this year, the 12-year prison sentence meted last month to Iranian-American scholar Kian Tajbakshsh and, most recently, the charges of espionage leveled against the three American backpackers who stumbled across the Iranian border in July...
... For too long the West has responded to these various outrages by offering Iran little more than meek compliance, plus a clean slate the moment any one crisis is resolved. Now President Barack Obama is again beseeching Iran to take the nuclear deal offered to it last month. Nobody should expect Iran's leaders to show good faith. Not when their days are spent executing protestors and abusing the likes of Clotilde Reiss.