U.S. President Barack Obama praised his own administration for clinching a nuclear deal with Iran in his final State of the Union speech on Tuesday, pointing out that the deal prevented Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and thus saving the world from a catastrophic war.
But even as Obama was praising Iran for agreeing to the deal, the White House was caught in a fix as Iranian forces seized 10 U.S. sailors aboard two Navy patrol boats just hours before Obama delivered his speech, WND reported. Iran eventually freed the sailors on Wednesday after holding them overnight. One of the sailors appeared on Iranian TV apologising to Iranian authorities for mistakenly entering Iranian waters, reports said.
Obama did not mention in his speech anything about the latest flare-up in U.S.-Iran relations.
It was up to White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest to try and make sense of Tuesday's events.
He was asked by CNN host Jake Tapper how Obama could praise Iran and congratulate his own administration when Iran has just committed a highly provocative action against the U.S. when it seized the American sailors and their two patrol boats near Farsi Island in the Persian Gulf.
Tapper also reminded Earnest that Iran recently fired upon an American warship and test-fired a ballistic missile. "The basic question being: This does not seem like a country that is ready to be welcomed back to the community of nations," Tapper said.
Earnest could only reply that Obama's nuclear deal with Iran was a separate issue from Iran's support of terrorism, missile tests and other attempts to undermine U.S. foreign policy.
"I hear you, but they have 10 American sailors in custody right now, Josh. I think there are probably a lot of Americans watching right now that are wondering why we are about to give them sanctions relief when they have 10 Americans – wherever they have them. In a boat, in a cell, whatever," said Tapper, according to the Blaze.
Earnest told Tapper that Iran's detention of the U.S. sailors will not alter the White House's plans to push for billions of dollars in sanctions relief. In the coming days, the U.S. is set to unfreeze roughly $100 billion in Iranian assets.
Earlier, White House Communications Director Jen Psaki also made the same statement in response to a question by CNN's Wolf Blitzer before Obama's State of the Union address.
Psaki's statement prompted Blitzer to comment, "If the president does mention Iran, does mention the Iran nuclear deal and praises it without even mentioning anything about these 10 American sailors, that could be awkward."
A Pentagon spokesman told the Associated Press that Iran's Revolutionary Guard caught and arrested the American sailors as they were travelling between Kuwait and Bahrain.
Although Iranian authorities said they would return the sailors "promptly," they said GPS equipment taken from the U.S. ships would "prove that the American ships where 'snooping' around in Iranian waters," the New York Times reported.
