Americans woke to great news this morning. Five prisoners, including a U.S student, held in Iran for 543 days in some cases, have been freed and are on their way home. And that’s a good thing, a very VERY good thing.

U.S. and Iranian officials say Iran is releasing four detained Iranian-Americans in exchange for seven Iranians held or charged in the United States.

The major diplomatic breakthrough was announced Saturday as the implementation of a landmark nuclear deal appeared imminent.
U.S. officials say the four Americans, including Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, former Marine Amir Hekmati and pastor Saeed Abidini, were to be flown from Iran to Switzerland on a Swiss plane and then brought to a U.S. military base in Landstuhl, Germany, for medical treatment.

Its been a long hard road for those men and for their families.

“This has been an answer to prayer,” Naghmeh said in a statement following her husband’s release. “This is a critical time for me and my family. We look forward to Saeed’s return and want to thank the millions of people who have stood with us in prayer during this most difficult time.”

Iran is not known for treating their prisoners well. In fact, Iran’s brutality is well-known. So one can only imagine the physical and mental conditions Amir, Jason, Pastor Saeed, Nosratollah Khosrav, and Matthew Trevithick have been through. I’m sure none of them will feel truly free until they actually step back onto terra firma here.

But their freedom comes at a very high price. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif is absolutely certain that all sanctions will be lifted against Iran this weekend.

“Today is a good day for the Iranian people as sanctions will be lifted today,” Iran’s ISNA agency quoted Mr Zarif as saying.

$100-150 billion in frozen assets will be handed over to Iran as early as today. 7 Iranians, with quite a record of sanctions busting are now on their way back to Iran.

Sad day for the FBI after individuals responsible for sanctions violations related to Iran's nuke program released https://t.co/7M1sJqJLRR

— Michael P Pregent (@MPPregent) January 16, 2016

Not only that, but Interpol has been coerced into taking 14 Iranians off of their WATCH List! Interpol doesn’t just throw bad guys onto their WATCH List for grins and giggles. Nope, they have to be very VERY bad dudes to land on that list. For example:

Confirmed: Hamid Arabnejad, CEO of Mahan, which delivers weapons to Assad daily, to be taken off Interpol list as part of swap @eottolenghi

— Omri Ceren (@cerenomri) January 16, 2016

I wonder, exactly how bad was the arm twisting for Interpol to cave and essentially wipe the slate clean?

Don’t get me wrong. I am thrilled that the American prisoners held by Iran are now on their way home. The problem is, this isn’t quite as happy an occasion as when our hostages were freed in 1980 after being held for 444 days.

You see, the price tag for today’s news is high. Basically Iran is now the leading mob boss on the block and every one of their shakedown tactics has worked. They test ballistic missiles thus violating sanctions and all we do is shake our heads. They fire rockets near our ships in the Strait of Hormuz and we just cluck our tongues. They tell the IAE to go pound sand when it comes to inspecting Iran’s nuclear facilities and all we do is shrug our shoulders. Naval ships and 10 US sailors are held w/o cause and we apologize! So you tell me? Who’s the shakedown artist in this picture?

Four US hostages exchanged for nuke players.

Last deal this good was exchange of #Bergdahl for Taliban dream team. pic.twitter.com/bQnbMaeQTp

— GuardAmerican (@GuardAmerican) January 16, 2016

We should be and are rejoicing that Iran has freed our US hostages, men who’ve been held without cause for far too long. However, we must not and cannot forget that their freedom has come with a high price. A price that I fear is going to come back to haunt us and soon.