So the Republicans tried to delay the release of Americans held in Iran until it was in their best interests politically? Really?

Courtesy of Tasnim News Agency: 

Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Shamkhani said a recent prisoner exchange between Iran and the US went ahead as planned despite calls by Republicans for a delay until US presidential elections. 

“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 Thursday in an address to a rally held in the central city of Yazd to mark the 37th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution’s victory. 

“However” he said “we acted upon our independent resolve and moved the process forward.”

Now of course the Republicans are going to dismiss this as mere propaganda, and usually that would be a reasonable charge to make.

If in fact this was not standard operating procedure for the GOP.

Courtesy of Truthout:  

Behind Carter's back, the Reagan campaign worked out a deal with the leader of Iran's radical faction - Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini - to keep the hostages in captivity until after the 1980 Presidential election. 

This was nothing short of treason. The Reagan campaign's secret negotiations with Khomeini - the so-called "October Surprise" - sabotaged Carter and Bani-Sadr's attempts to free the hostages. And as Bani-Sadr told The Christian Science Monitor in March of this year, they most certainly "tipped the results of the [1980] election in Reagan's favor." 

Not surprisingly, Iran released the hostages on January 20, 1981, at the exact moment Ronald Reagan was sworn into office.

So do I think that at the same time the Republicans were criticizing President Obama for not getting the prisoners released BEFORE he signed the nuclear deal with Iran, they were also working behind the scenes to keep those men in prison even longer until it could help them politically?

Oh hell yeah!