Iran jails American businessman for ‘spying,’ threatening Biden’s plans for rapprochement
JAN 21, 2021 9:00 AM BY CHRISTINE DOUGLASS-WILLIAMS
Already Iran is strong-arming the US in anticipation of a weak Biden administration, which it has determined will bow to the Iranian regime and be easily manipulated by it. Appeasement has never worked, nor will it ever work with Iran. Under the tough-on-Iran Trump administration, Iran released over 40 U.S. hostages and detainees.
“Iran jails U.S. businessman, possibly jeopardizing Biden’s plans for diplomacy with Tehran,” by Dan De Luce, NBC News, January 17, 2021:
WASHINGTON — Only weeks after the U.S. election and three days after an Iranian nuclear scientist was assassinated, Iranian authorities convicted a U.S. businessman on spying charges, a family friend said.
The case threatens to complicate plans by the next administration to pursue diplomacy with Iran, as President-elect Joe Biden has said he would be open to easing sanctions on Tehran if the regime returned to compliance with a 2015 nuclear agreement.
The man, Emad Shargi, 56, who is Iranian American, was summoned to a Tehran court Nov. 30 and told that he had been convicted of espionage without a trial and sentenced to 10 years, a family friend said.
Shargi’s family has not heard from him for more than six weeks, the family said in a statement.
Only a year earlier, in December 2019, an Iranian court had cleared Shargi, but the regime withheld his Iranian and U.S. passports.
The about-face by the Iranian authorities took place only weeks after Biden won the U.S. presidential election and three days after the killing of a leading nuclear scientist and senior defense official, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, east of Tehran. Iran blamed Israel for the assassination; Israel has declined to comment…. |
