Iran's national security is the business of Iran -- not the POTUS or US senate. Rand needs to keep that in mind. Iran is surrounded by nuclear nations. If Iran feels that it needs to be nuclear in order to protect itself in the ME surrounded by hostile forces, then who are we (on the other side of the world) to tell Iran it can not provide for its self defense?
We have no idea if the held Americans are spies or not. Maybe they are and maybe they aren't. I would advise Rand to stay out of the whole mess and allow it to work itself through the intel/state apparatus.
Rand should instead concentrate on dismantling the police / surveillance state here in the US; bringing our troops home; securing our border; turn 'free' trade into fair trade.
=== NOTES ===
Wesley K. Clark, Council on Foreign Relations
"Six weeks after 9/11, I went down to the office of one of the joint staff generals, and he said, sir -- I said you told me a couple -- three weeks ago we're going to invade Iraq. And that didn't make any sense. Are we still invading Iraq? By this time, we were bombing in Afghanistan.
"He said, "Oh, it's worse than that," he said. He held up a piece of paper. He said, "This is a memo that says, you know, all the countries on the target list; it's a five-year campaign plan, and it's Iraq,
Syria, Lebanon,
Iran, Libya, Sudan and Somalia.
"... So as soon as we finished off with Iraq, we have, you know -- we might have a victory parade down Constitution Avenue or not, but we would then move into Syria. It was logical. And then we could go from Syria -- you know, that would open up Lebanon. Then we'd circle back and eventually come back to Iran. These countries in the region knew it. Their ambassadors knew it. It was all over the world that Iraq was the first stop."
-- Wesley K. Clark, President and CEO, Wesley K. Clark and Associates, LLC; former Supreme Allied Commander, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (1997-200) and former Director of Strategic Plans and Policy, Joint Chiefs of Staff (1994-96), Iraq: The Way Forward—A Conversation with General Wesley Clark [Rush Transcript; Federal News Service, Inc.], Council on Foreign Relations, February 10, 2006,
www.cfr.org/iraq/iraq-way-forward-c...ush-transcript-federal-news-service-inc/p9845 --
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"... We shouldn't assume for even a minute that in the next 25 to 50 years the American military might be able to come home [from the Middle East] ..."
-- Retired Gen. John Abizaid, the former commander of the U.S. Central Command, Abizaid Warns of 50-year U.S. Presence in Middle East --
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"America's global primacy is directly dependent on ... its preponderance on the Eurasian continent. ... [The] Eurasian Balkans are [an] economic prize ... of natural gas and oil reserves. ... [America’s] primary interest ... [is to] ... ensure no single power ... controls this geopolitical space ... to prevent the emergence of a ... coalition that could ... challenge America's primacy. ... The three grand imperatives of IMPERIAL GEOSTRATEGY are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the VASSALS, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the BARBARIANS from coming together. " (emphasis added)
-- Zbigniew Brzezinski (Carter Administration National Security adviser in his book " The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives")