Iran Takes More Hostages: What Did The US Expect?

Another question raised is that while the State Department has long warned American citizens against traveling to Iran, why do some dual nationals, primarily Iranian-Americans, continue to travel to Iran for business or other reasons?

The Iranian government has learned that arresting dual nationals and Iranian-Americans not only can lead to the flow of billions of dollars to Iran, but also can ratchet up Iran's political leverage against the US and Western allies.

President Obama is dangerously encouraging the Iranian leaders' detaining and arresting dual nationals to extort money and play hardball.

Iran is not only detaining and arresting more Iranian-Americans, but also boasting about it and publicly asking for more money to release them.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) pointed out recently: "We should wait and see, the U.S. will offer ... many billions of dollars to release" two particular Iranian-American businessman, Siamak Namazi and his father Baquer Namazi.

According to Alex Shirazi's nuanced profile, Siamak Namazi was one of the intellectual architects of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), which has been accused of lobbying for the Iranian regime and pursuing policies that benefit themselves and the Iranian regime. Accordingly, the organization was founded "as a way to continuously lobby for the removal of sanctions against Iran and to promote Iran's foreign policy, while combating the pro-Israel sentiment in America, according to documents from a Cyprus convention that featured the two men."

Mr. Namazi worked for Iran's Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning from 1994 to 1996. He also joined a company in Tehran called Atieh Bahar Consulting (AB), which was founded by Pari Namazi and her husband, Bijan Khajehpour.

The Tehran-based Atieh Bahar Consulting "offered a range of legal and industrial services to foreign enterprises, most importantly the access it provided to the [Iranian] regime, and the advice it dispensed on how best to navigate the vagaries of the regime's entrenched factions and competitive interests."

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