Foreign-Policy Expert: Yes, It Was Ransom

Frida Ghitis, writing at CNN.com, makes a common-sense point about the Obama administration’s $400 million cash airdrop to the Iranians: How Iran perceives it matters more than Obama’s spin. “A large cash payment at a time of a prisoner release looks precisely like a ransom payment,” Ghitis writes. “And that’s what the Iranian commander of the dreaded Basij militia called it when he said the money ‘was in return for the release of American spies.’ If Iran thinks it was ransom, then for practical purposes it was.” And as Secretary of State John Kerry “has awkwardly traveled the world urging countries to invest in Iran, which remains the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism,” it doesn’t appear to be a one-off, either.