Thought experiment: what if the Iran nuclear deal had failed?

More than four years after Amir Hekmati was arrested in Iran, Sarah Hekmati was going to see her brother as a free man thanks to a prisoner swap that garnered his release along with three other Americans.

“At some point, I will be ready to discuss my ordeal but for now, I just want to express my profound appreciation for the tremendous support I have received”, the Iranian-American said in a statement early Friday morning.

He had been at the US military’s Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany since his weekend release, and had recounted Tuesday how disbelief turned to joy when he and three fellow Americans realized they were being freed.

A US congressman from MI said he worked in public and behind the scenes, once meeting privately with Iran’s foreign minister, to win the release of an Iranian-American prisoner from his congressional district sentenced to death for spying.

Although the matter surfaced in a number of exchanges over the years, talks on the money only gained speed during the last year or so of contacts between the Americans and Iranians focused on the prisoner swap, officials familiar with the process said.

Hekmati was detained in 2011, weeks after arriving in Iran to visit his grandmother, according to his family’s website. “They had said that Yegi had to come along with Jason, and, you know, they got her out”. Hillary Clinton also welcomed the developments while saying Iran should not be thanked because it should never have detained the Americans.

He was accompanied out of Tehran by his mother and Iranian wife, also a journalist.

Those were the words uttered by Yeganeh Salehi, the wife of Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, to her mother-in-law as the two women spent hours in the hands of Iranian security services at the time of Rezaian’s release from prison.

“I hope everyone will respect my need for privacy as I take some time for myself and for my family”.

“When Americans are freed, that’s something we can all celebrate”, US President Barak Obama said in a televised statement from the White House. More ominously, being “the American” put him at risk with certain elements of the state, and is undoubtedly what led to his imprisonment on charges of espionage.

Bezos tweeted over the weekend, “Believe me, if you’re ever tossed in a foreign prison, you want” Post publisher “Fred Ryan and Marty Baron on the team working to get you out”.

USA officials previously said that the departure delays were caused by a disagreement over whether Rezaian’s mother Mary was on the flight manifest.

In turn, the U.S. will pardon or drop charges against seven Iranians – six of whom are dual U.S.-Iranian citizens – accused or convicted of violating U.S. sanctions. He was one of four Iranian-Americans released in an exchange with the Iranian government. He said there were “tears, and smiles and hugs” when the family was reunited. He was resentenced to a ten-year term after a secret trial in which Hekmati was not allowed to present a defense, according to his family.