Missing Airman Raises Concerns That Iran Could Gain Leverage Over the U.S.

[dalton99a]

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/04/world/middleeast/missing-airman-iran.html

Missing Airman Raises Concerns That Iran Could Gain Leverage Over the U.S.
Since 1979, Iran has repeatedly used Americans and Europeans detained on its territory to win concessions over more powerful adversaries.
By Yeganeh Torbati
April 4, 2026 Updated 8:56 a.m. ET

...

The 1979 crisis came to define the final year of Jimmy Carter’s presidency and served for many as a symbol of his failures.

Mr. Trump has repeatedly criticized Mr. Carter’s handling of the hostage crisis, calling it “pathetic.”

In 1980, he told a journalist, “That this country sits back and allows a country such as Iran to hold our hostages, to my way of thinking, is a horror, and I don’t think they’d do it with other countries.”

Hamidreza Azizi, an expert on Iranian security issues at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, a research organization, said Iran could take one of two tacks if it manages to capture the airman.

If the capture remains secret, the Iranians could approach the United States privately and cut a behind-the-scenes deal, demanding concessions in exchange for the crew member’s secret release. Or Iran could parade the airman in front of the cameras as propaganda.

That, he said, was the more likely strategy. “They really do want to present this image of victory and also to humiliate Trump,” Mr. Azizi said.

...

[displacedvermoter]

1. You mean "much more leverage" at this point

[newdeal2]

2. Is Trump still golfing while a soldier is MIA?

If he is, he is a bigger POS than anyone could imagine.

[Hey Joe]

6. Oh, he is both. A piece of shit and golfing while

US servicemen die.
Suckers and losers to him and his corporate sponsors.
Makes me sick

[Prairie Gates]

3. This is an innocent time in the war

There are going to be many planes down and many POWs if things keep going the way they're going.

[Baitball Blogger]

4. You know, I hate to say it, but I hope it's a male serviceman who

went down and not a female.

I know that will be controversial to say that here, but what they can do to humiliate her in ways that all Middle Eastern countries will understand with their traditional views, is just well, unfathomable. With a man, those kinds of methods would probably not even be considered.

I pray for their safe return, whoever they are.

[Lovie777]

5. I don't think the current effed up administration thought this through..............

[RandomNumbers]

7. Except that Trump Just.Does.Not.Give.A.Shit.

That's the wild card.

He cares not one tiny bit about our service members. Not a nano bit. Nothing.

How so many people could have voted for this shitstain - regardless of some unknown element of fraud, a helluva lot of so-called "Americans" DID in fact, vote exactly for this shitstain and his purported platform, which was plenty bad enough - it's unfathomable and heartbreaking.

Trump only gives a shit about himself and making money for people he has reason to want to make money for. Most, maybe all of us here, don't even know the web of machinations that may factor into "what will happen next", let alone how this all ends. (Until HE ends. But who knows who will have the power then.)