There is more to report on Barack Obama’s now infamous Iranian ransom deal. According to State Department official Brett McGurk, Obama’s hostage “deal” had three parts. First, the Obama administration dropped criminal charges against 21 Iranian nationals. Second, Obama dropped $400 million in cash into the hands of the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism — and followed that with $1.3 billion cash in two more midnight deliveries. Third, the administration agreed to support the immediate delisting of UN sanctions on two Iranian banks.

The banks in question had been blacklisted by the UN for financing Iran’s ballistic-missile program. According to the original nuclear deal reached in July 2015, these Iranian banks were not to have the UN sanctions lifted until 2023, after Iran was to have demonstrated it was keeping to the terms of the agreement. However, Tehran pressed to have the bank sanctions lifted, arguing that they were essential to the health of the country’s economy. It appears the banks were just another concession in order for Obama to take credit for getting a few American hostages freed.

Smarting from earned criticism over his disastrous Iran nuclear deal, Obama seized the hostage release as an opportunity to put a smiley face on that deal, and give Hillary Clinton some political cover. But in doing so, he compromised the U.S.‘s longstanding policy of not paying ransom to terrorists. This transaction indicates Obama’s desperation to add some positive spin to his catastrophically failed Middle East policies, despite heavy opposition to his Iran plan from both Democrats and Republicans. But Obama’s enduring legacy in the region is his abject compromise of our national security, and that of our allies.

(Revised.)