A former Navy SEAL and current GOP congressional candidate says the Biden administration’s recent prisoner swap with Iran was “shameful.”
“It’s shameful. Bottom line,” congressional candidate Tim Sheehy, who’s running to unseat Montana Sen. Jon Tester, told Fox News.
“After our Afghan withdrawal disaster in Kabul, which was another shameful foreign policy decision by Blinken and Biden, we shouldn’t be surprised at this,” he added.
As previously reported, President Joe Biden recently orchestrated an exchange with Iran whereby the rogue regime handed over five detained U.S. citizens in exchange for $6 million, in addition to the freeing of five detained Iranians.
“For us to continue to enable that, to pay them billions of dollars, to give them access to their billions of dollars of state reserves is doing nothing but empowering one of America’s most persistent and aggressive adversaries,” Sheehy continued.
“It’s a disgrace to all the American troops, intelligence professionals and service folks who have been working diligently for decades to try to contain the Iranian threat. And it’s really sad to see it happen yet again,” he said.
Asked for his overall opinion of the president’s foreign policy decisions, Sheehy reportedly said it remains “very low” due to a “lack of accountability” over Afghanistan.
He seems to feel similarly about the Biden military’s “woke” focus on social initiatives like gender reassignment surgery for so-called “transgender” soldiers.
“The United States military’s job is very simple: close with and kill the enemy. It is to advance American interests through military force when necessary. Now, we don’t want to use that military force unless we absolutely have to. And we don’t want to send our young boys and girls overseas unless there’s a very good reason to do so,” Sheehy, a Purple Heart recipient, said.
“However, we must always be equipping our military and ensuring that what we’re equipping them with, how we’re manning them all aligns with their mission, which is to close with and kill the enemy and advance America’s interest overseas. And focusing on social experimentation, social initiatives at the expense of combat readiness is very dangerous,” he added.
The latest “Iran deal” has faced intense pushback from congressional Republicans, who argue it’s just another form of appeasement equivalent to the type of crap that former President Barack Hussein Obama used to pull.
“During Barack Obama’s presidency, the United States negotiated the release of five detained Americans that coincided with the implementation of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and involved prisoner exchanges,” Politico notes.
“At the same time, Obama’s team struck a deal with Iran on a separate, decades-old military sales legal dispute. Because the latter involved sending an initial $400 million in cash to Iran just as the prisoners were being released, Republicans slammed it as a ransom that would lead Iran to imprison more Americans,” according to Politico.
And wouldn’t you know it, Iran went on to imprison more Americans …
While I welcome home wrongfully detained Americans, unfreezing $6B in #Iranian assets dangerously further incentivizes hostage taking & provides a windfall for regime aggression. The Biden Admin must punish those who use Americans as political pawns and work to end this practice. https://t.co/n1cXH9ldzR
— Senate Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member (@SenateForeign) August 10, 2023
“While we always welcome the release of American hostages—if they are in fact released after President Biden pays Iran $6 billion in ransom—this craven act of appeasement will only embolden the ayatollahs to take more hostages and use these ill-gotten gains to attack our troops, fund terrorism, and arm Russia,” Sen. Tom Cotton said in a statement prior to the latest prisoner exchange.
“This cycle will continue until President Biden stops dancing to Iran’s tune and starts responding firmly and decisively to their aggression,” he added.
Former President Donald Trump has also spoken out about the deal.
“I brought 58 HOSTAGES home from many different countries, including North Korea, and I never paid anything. They all understood they MUST LET THESE PEOPLE COME HOME! Toward the end, it got so that countries didn’t even start the conversation asking for money, because they knew they would not get it,” he wrote on Truth Social this week.
“Once you pay, you always pay, & MANY MORE HOSTAGES WILL BE TAKEN. Our grossly incompetent ‘leader,’ Crooked Joe Biden, gave 6 BILLION DOLLARS for 5 people. Iran gave ZERO for 5. He’s Dumb as a ROCK!” he added.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken has for his part claimed the $6 billion of Iran’s “own money” will only be used to address humanitarian concerns. Few Republicans, if any, believe him, especially since Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has made it clear he intends to use the money however he sees fit.
“This money belongs to the Iranian people, the Iranian government, so the Islamic Republic of Iran will decide what to do with this money,” Raisi said during an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt.
Writers and editors can be contacted at [email protected] with feedback, tips, or corrections.
V. Saxena is a staff writer with a decade of experience as a professional writer, and a lifetime of experience as an avid news junkie. He holds a degree in computer technology from Purdue University. Saxena also contributes to BizPac Review.
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