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I would encourage everyone to not draw conclusions about the point this article is trying to make until they've had a chance to read the whole thing (beneath the paywall, use the 'web' button beneath the HN title and click through to the WSJ article from Google).

This article isn't well represented by the fragment visible to non-subscribers.

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It's true that it was executed as a resolution to an old dispute predating the current regime, but at the same time it's hard to believe there was no connection between the two events --that they were strictly independent and merely coincidental.

Apparently the Iranians don't believe it was merely coincidental:

> Iranian press reports have quoted senior Iranian defense officials describing the cash as a ransom payment. The Iranian foreign ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment...Revolutionary Guard commanders boasted at the time that the Americans had succumbed to Iranian pressure. “Taking this much money back was in return for the release of the American spies,” said Gen. Mohammad Reza Naghdi, commander of the Guard’s Basij militia, on state media.

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