MARGARET WARNER'S STORY ON IRAN DETAINING MS. ESFANDIARI

I watched Margaret Warner's discussion last night on The NewsHour with her two guests Lee Hamilton and Karim Sadjadpour about Iran's holding 67-year old Ms. Haleh Esfandiari, director of the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, after she went back to Iran to visit her ailing 93-year old mother. As I indicated in my post on May 11, 2007, on the same subject, I am against Iran taking Ms. Esfandiari into custody and detention without any evidence she did anything wrong.

I am also against a decision by Bush and Cheney to arrest the five Iranians in Iraq in January 2007, and in deciding to keep them in custody even though there is no evidence they did anything which would justify their imprisonment, other than being Iranians.

I think the way to secure the release of Ms. Esfandiari is for the United States to sit down and negotiate with Iran over these detainees.

I heard nothing from Margaret Warner or her guests remotely suggesting this diplomatic stategy. Nor did anyone mention the obvious connection between the detention by the U.S. of the five Iranians with Iran's detention of Ms. Esfandiari.