Pallets of Francs: The Story Behind the $1.7 Billion the Obama Administration Paid Iran
By Ervin Dhima
The $1.7 billion the Obama administration sent Iran in 2016 was a debt thirty-seven years in the making — money Iran paid the United States before the 1979 revolution. How it was paid, in untraceable cash and only after four Americans were freed, turned a defensible legal settlement into a decade-long argument over whether it was a ransom.