May 4, 2023 | The Dispatch

How Sanctions Can Help Bring Home American Hostages

The Levinson Act allows the administration to target individuals, not just organizations.
May 4, 2023 | The Dispatch

How Sanctions Can Help Bring Home American Hostages

The Levinson Act allows the administration to target individuals, not just organizations.

Excerpt

Last month, the State Department designated Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich as “wrongfully detained” by Russia following his March arrest on bogus charges of espionage—barely three months after the highly controversial prisoner exchange of convicted arms dealer, Viktor Bout, to bring home Brittney Griner from her own wrongful detention. 

While the Biden administration has taken a welcome step toward addressing the growing problem of hostile powers taking Americans hostage–the White House hit Russia’s Federal Security Service and a branch of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard with sanctions last week for their role in wrongfully detaining American citizens abroad—the Gershkovich case affords the government an opportunity to use a relatively new foreign policy tool for punishing foreign actors who wrongfully detain Amercans.

Richard Goldberg, a former National Security Council official, is a senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Sarah Levinson Moriarty, one of Robert Levinson’s seven children, is a fellow with New America’s International Security Program. Follow Rich on Twitter @rich_goldberg. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focused on national security and foreign policy.   

Issues:

Iran Iran Global Threat Network Iran Sanctions Israel Russia Sanctions and Illicit Finance