Trying to Catch That Reagan Magic
By 
I wonder how true this actually is.
An Iranian official said “Republican rivals of the current US administration” attempted to stall last month’s Iranian-U.S. prisoner swap until the eve of the U.S. presidential election, Tasnim News Agency reported.
According to the semi-official Iranian news outlet, Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, made the claims during a speech Thursday at a rally in Yazd, Iran.
“In the course of the talks for exchanging prisoners, the Republican rivals of the current US administration who claim to be humanitarians and advocates of human rights sent a message telling us not to release these people [American prisoners] and continue this process [of talks] until the eve of US presidential elections,” Shamkhani said, according to Tasnim.
“We acted upon our independent resolve and moved the process forward,” Shamkhani said.
Given that under current Republican ideology, Democratic presidents have to stop governing in the last year of their term, it wouldn’t actually shock me if there was some level of truth to this. Besides, all those Republican candidates want to be Reagan on January 20, 1981, announcing the hostages have returned from Iran on the first day of his administration.