The latest attacks across the Mideast have been met with Tehran's reflex actions.
Americans have been abducted.
The reported abduction of a U.S. freelance journalist, identified as Shelly Kittleson, in Baghdad quite recently has the fingerprints of the Iran‑aligned militia Kataib Hezbollah all over it.
Hostage‑taking is Iran's cheapest asymmetric weapon, and it knows exactly how to use it.
Seizing innocent U.S. citizens costs the regime nothing, yet it yields enormous leverage over Washington. And right now, Iran is replenishing its supply.
Advocacy groups estimate that roughly six Americans are currently detained — several inside Evin Prison, where families warn that medical care is sporadic and the risk of harm rises with every military exchange.
Time, health, and miscalculation are now the biggest threats to these Americans. Tehran understands this.
It exploits it.
This is not random cruelty. It is a system.
Hostage‑Taking: Iran’s Most Reliable Weapon
Iran has been trafficking in American hostages for more than four decades.
The 1979 embassy seizure wasn't an outburst — it was the opening chapter.
Since then, Tehran has perfected the model: detain Americans, deny due process, and use them as bargaining chips for money, sanctions relief, prisoner swaps, or political concessions.
The names change — Afshin Sheikholeslami Vatani, Kamran Hekmati, Reza Valizadeh, Shahab Dalili — but the playbook does not. Iran takes hostages because it works.
And it keeps working because the cost remains too low.
Washington, D.C. may have the tools, but they need to be sharpened.
The United States has built a framework to respond.
The 2025 Executive Order and the Countering Wrongful Detention Act allow for designations, sanctions, visa bans, and passport restrictions.
These authorities were designed "to raise the political and economic cost of hostage diplomacy."
But Iran's behavior tells us the truth: the cost is still a bargain.
Tehran calculates — correctly — that hostage‑taking distorts U.S. diplomacy, constrains military options, and pressures American leaders in ways no missile or militia attack ever could.
Until that calculus changes, the practice will continue.
What must real consequences look like?
If America wants to stop Iran — and other adversaries — from trafficking in U.S. citizens, consequences must be automatic, painful, and multilateral. That means immediate sanctions the moment an American is detained — no debate, no delay.
Next it means diplomatic downgrades including suspension of back‑channel privileges. Add to that coordinated penalties with allies, so Iran cannot play capitals against each other.
More tools include targeted financial isolation of individuals and institutions involved in detentions and public attribution within hours, not weeks.
Finally, peer pressure is applied by restricting Iran’s access to international forums until detainees are released.
These are not escalatory.
They are preventive.
They raise the cost before the next American is taken.
We need doctrine, not improvisation.
Hostage‑taking is an asymmetric attack on the United States.
Yet we treat it episodically, as if each case is a standalone crisis.
That must end.
Our military establishment, think tanks, and universities should be mobilized — formally — to develop and maintain doctrine on state‑sponsored hostage‑taking.
We study nuclear deterrence, cyber conflict, terrorism, and conventional warfare with rigor.
Hostage‑taking deserves the same rigorous study and planning.
Doctrine should define how the U.S. signals deterrence, how consequences are triggered, how allies coordinate, how intelligence, diplomacy, and economic tools integrate, and how to reduce exposure for Americans abroad.
Adversaries must conclude that seizing an American is not leverage — it's a strategic blunder.
Behind every policy debate is a family living in suspended animation. As one attached document reminds us, "Every day matters for the Americans being held and the families waiting at home."
This writer spent time with families in similar circumstances.
The uncertainty is crushing.
The silence is its own form of violence.
They require more than reactive diplomacy.
Our entire society requires deterrence from hostage taking as it does from nuclear exchange.
Iran's hostage‑taking is state‑sponsored human trafficking weaponized against the United States. It's time to bring our citizens home, and to ensure no adversary ever again believes that trafficking in American lives is a viable tool of state power.
That requires doctrine. It requires consequences. And it requires resolve.
Hugh Dugan served as Acting Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs in the first Trump Administration. Read more Hugh Dugan Insider articles — Click Here Now.
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