Saeed Abedini

On Tuesday, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-CA) introduced legislation to prevent and ensure that the United States will never again makes ransom payments, or other cash payouts, to the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Russian officials are seeking to sell Iran military helicopters following the end of decades-long sanctions on the Islamic regime.

Iran State TV station FARS announced Saturday morning that four American dual-nationality prisoners were released from Iranian custody in a “prisoner swap” with the United States.

Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton’s campaign offered public support to the cause of freeing American hostages in Iran.

Iran has taken another American citizen captive. On Tuesday, Iran’s state-owned IRIB news network announced that the regime had arrested Nizar Ahmad Zakka, a Lebanese-American from Riverside, California with alleged “deep ties” to the U.S. military and intelligence services on suspicion of espionage.

As the White House hails a breakthrough in its diplomatic effort to curb Iran’s nuclear program, several under-reported facts cast a shadow over any real, or imagined, success. President Obama’s assurance that “every pathway to a nuclear weapon is cut off” for Iran flies in the face of reality.

Last year, the Senate called on President Obama to “use the tools it has in pursuit of what should be a bipartisan goal: securing the release of American citizens being held as hostages by the regime in Iran.” Today, in the announcement of a nuclear deal with Iran that ignores the plight of these three hostages, the Obama administration has left behind a Christian preacher, a journalist, and a U.S. Marine.

Iran’s “morality police” arrested nine Christians on Christmas Day, presumably for celebrating the seminal holiday, though authorities did not give reason for the arrest. Heavily armed agents transferred the nine people to an unnamed location.