IRAN: FREE MS. ESFANDIARI; U.S.: FREE THE FIVE IRANIANS

I agree with Senators Obama, Mikulski and Cardin that Iran should release the 67-year old scholar, Haleh Esfandiari, taken into custody while she was on a trip to Iran visiting her 93-year old mother. I think it is unjust for Iran to be detaining this lady, just as I think it is cruel and unjust for the United States under Bush and Cheney to be arresting and detaining the five Iranian diplomats picked up in Iraq in January. See my post on April 14, 2007 on their arrest and detention.

As to Ms. Esfandiari, Robin Wright in the Washington Post writes today:

"Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and three senior lawmakers today called for the immediate release of Haleh Esfandiari, the American scholar imprisoned in Iran this week after being under virtual house arrest for more than four months.

""The Iranian government's detention of this 67-year-old grandmother and scholar shows its complete disregard for basic human rights," Obama said in a statement. "If the Iranian government has any desire to engage the world in dialogue, it can demonstrate that desire by releasing this champion of dialogue from detention."

"In a joint statement, Sens. Barbara Mikulski and Benjamin L. Cardin, both Maryland Democrats, urged Iran to make a "gesture of goodwill" to the American people by immediately releasing Esfandiari, who is director of the Middle East program at the Smithsonian Institution's Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and a resident of Potomac."

This is not complicated to solve. The United States detains and arrests five Iranians. Iran detains and arrests Ms. Esfandiari. Both countries believe the arrests on the part of the other are unjustified and unwarranted. I call upon Bush and Cheney to work for the release of Ms. Esfandiari by sitting down and negotiating with Iran as to the release of the five Iranians. There is no reason why the U.S. should consider Iran an "enemy" or "adversary." But the arrest of Ms. Esfandiari should not be considered to be out of the blue or unexpected, given the detention of the five Iranians since January 2007.