Several Americans who spent more than a year as hostages of the Iranian regime beginning in 1979 reacted with ambivalence—or outright dismay—at the prospect of President Donald Trump cutting a deal with the Islamic Republic.
“I don’t think they’re honorable,” Clair Cortland Barnes, now 80, told the Washington Free Beacon from his home in Leland, N.C., referring to the Iranian government. “I think that whatever deal you make with them, they’re going to break as soon as they can.”
Barnes, a former U.S. government communications specialist, spent 444 days in captivity at the U.S. embassy in Iran after it was overrun by radical Islamist followers of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. During his time in captivity, Barnes personally witnessed Iranians beating prisoners who attempted to escape.
A Trump voter, Barnes was an outspoken critic of former president Barack Obama’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and warned Trump that the Iranians are “liars” and that any agreement would only be “a paper deal.”
“I kind of consider the Iranians and Putin to be in the same boat,” Barnes said.
William Gallegos, a 21-year-old Marine Corps guard when he was taken hostage by the Iranian radicals, said he was “ambivalent” about a deal with his former captors.
“Even though President Trump is a great negotiator, you know Iran; even if they make a deal, whatever happens once Iran gets what they want?” Gallegos asked. “Then they screw everybody else over, and then it’s done, and then it starts all over again. And that’s the way it’s been for, what, 40-something years now.”
Gallegos, like Barnes, voted for Trump. After a career with the Marines, the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, and the Denver Police Department as a detective, he retired in 2019. In a 2009 oral history of the hostage crisis, he recalled the Iranians tying him up and blindfolding him.
“It’s just, just the way Iran is,” Gallegos told the Free Beacon. “It’s always been that way. You know, Iran doesn’t care about anybody else. They never have, you know, since our situation, and it’s, you know, it’s like I say, once a deal is made, Iran always manages to break it, so it doesn’t matter.”
The reactions from former hostages come at what appears to be an uncertain point in negotiations between the two sides. While Trump has declared that Iran may not continue to enrich uranium as part of any new deal, U.S. media reports indicate that his administration’s proposal may allow some enrichment.
Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei rejected the offer, calling it “nonsense” from the “rude and arrogant leaders of America.”
“The U.S.’s first word is that Iran should not have a nuclear industry,” Khamenei said. “Our response to America’s nonsense claims is clear: They cannot do a damn thing in this matter.”
For Kevin Hermening, who was a young Marine when he was taken prisoner, a deal can only work “if it is built on unambiguous strength and non-negotiable principles.” Enrichment is one of his biggest red lines.
“It’s a hard no for me on uranium for enrichment, for weapons purposes,” Hermening said.
Hermening made clear that he does not believe Iran would use any enrichment for peaceful purposes, noting that the Obama deal had not allowed inspectors unfettered access to suspected nuclear sites.
Obama’s JCPOA allowed the Iranians to pursue allegedly peaceful enrichment, a provision against which critics—including Trump—railed.
“In fact, the deal allowed Iran to continue enriching uranium and, over time, reach the brink of a nuclear breakout,” Trump noted in 2018, the year he tore up the agreement.
“I can’t imagine my emotional state if this President made a deal allowing Iran to pursue the development of nuclear weapons,” Hermening said.
Other former hostages told the Free Beacon they would like to see a deal.
“I hope that they will be reasonable and successful,” said Kathryn L. Koob, a former Foreign Service officer at the embassy.
Barry Rosen, the embassy’s former press attaché, said he “absolutely” wants an Iran deal—but is skeptical that U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff will be able to get it over the finish line.
“I don’t want to see a war break out—another war break out—in the Middle East,” Rosen said.
Steven W. Kirtley, who was another Marine guard at the embassy, said he is supportive of a deal because it would be “good for the [United States].”
“What is the alternative?” he asked.
John W. Limbert, now 82, was a political officer at the embassy during the crisis and hung around in the Foreign Service after his release. He later served as deputy assistant secretary of state responsible for Iranian affairs and ultimately as U.S. ambassador to Mauritania from 2000 to 2003.
“I’d like to see, you know, the U.S. and Iran, at least, be on some more positive track than we’ve been for the last 45 years,” Limbert told the Free Beacon.
“We can, we can continue doing what we’ve done for the last 45 years,” he said. “But you know, unless you’ve been living in a tree, I mean, it’s pretty obvious it hasn’t accomplished much.”
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