re: Surprise! Donald Trump is terrible at diplomacy. - WaPo - Update: FT Still Right

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Barack Obama got eleven back, and I was pleased we got the hostages back under both.

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In return for releasing terrorists back into terrorist hotbeds to return to their terrorist ways against us. Then he decided to unilaterally give Iran billions in multiple currencies in the middle of the night. Trump used the worlds most powerful military and comparable rhetoric to the hostage holder and low and behold they were returned without a single dollar or a single terrorist.

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The problem is that he made a show of it; you don’t make a show of saving hostages or prisoners because it incentivizes taking them. European nations pay ransoms. The US doesn’t. There’s varying arguments there; you save your people when you pay, but at a cost to other people who may be taken prisoner. The US doesn’t, but a US hostage being beheaded on TV or sent back on his deathbed is a win for you if you’re ISIS or North Korea. There’s nuance here, and the way Trump went about this was hamfisted and weak.

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Obama paid Iran. And then there’s the spectacle Obama made of Bowe Bergdhal in the rose Garden. Man you people are thick.