Source: New York Times

Why Iran Freed Roxana Saberi Everyone who knows Roxana Saberi was shocked to learn of her arrest last January. Of all my journalist friends in Iran, her reporting was always the most cautious. As a friend in Tehran put it, “if you had asked me to list 1,000 people the regime would potentially target, Roxana wouldn’t have been among them.” Several Iranian officials I spoke to conceded that the charges against her — espionage — were completely baseless.

So why did the Iranian authorities imprison her? Didn’t they realize that would damage Iran’s international reputation and increase its political and economic isolation? Didn’t they understand that by imprisoning an American citizen they would diminish the prospects of a diplomatic breakthrough with the United States? The answer is yes, and that is precisely what they’re hoping to achieve.

Going back to the 1979 hostage crisis, hard-line factions in Tehran have a history of provoking international incidents to advance their domestic political agendas. Figures like Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, a powerful supporter of President Ahmadinejad, argue that enmity toward the United States was a fundamental pillar of the 1979 revolution and central to the identity of the Islamic Republic: “If pro-American tendencies come to power in Iran we have to say goodbye to everything. After all, anti-Americanism is among the main features of our Islamic state.”

But while they cloak their hostility toward the United States with appeals to ideological purity, these actors — including powerful, aging clergymen and nouveau riche Revolutionary Guardsmen — are usually driven by power and greed. They recognize that improved ties with Washington would lead to greater openness, which would undermine the political and economic monopolies they enjoy in isolation.

Iran’s hard-liners may have calculated that after four months, the costs of holding on to Roxana Saberi outweighed any continued benefits. After all, there are now many voices in Washington arguing that engaging Tehran’s leadership is an exercise in futility. The Obama administration should understand that this is precisely the conclusion her jailers would like us to draw.