Although Trump has a strong track record of freeing Americans and other nationals held hostage around the world, Iranian-American dual nationals have been a blind spot across both of his terms. Several of them languished in Evin prison well into the Biden presidency before being released in 2023 as part of a hostage deal.

The moment seems ripe for this kind of deal.

Two French nationals held in Iran for over three years were released on Tuesday. On the same day, Shinnosuke Kawashima, Tehran bureau chief for Japan’s public broadcaster NHK, was released on bail, according to multiple people with direct knowledge of the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. Still, Kawashima is unable to leave the country and could face trial on bogus national security charges.

On the same day, American journalist Shelly Kittleson was freed in a prisoner swap after being abducted by an Iran-backed militia in Baghdad last week.

It is unclear whether Trump had much to do with any of these releases, but the ceasefire provides a moment to test Tehran’s willingness to compromise. Iran has previously released political prisoners to signal to the U.S. and other countries that it was willing to negotiate. Trump should demand freedom for many more of Iran’s hostages and political prisoners.

Two of Iran’s most revered activists, Nobel laureate Narges Mohammadi and human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, are back in prison. These two women have spent years supporting the rule of law and advancing the democratic aspirations of Iranians, refusing to believe that their efforts would fail. Both have paid a terrible price for their bravery.

For many Iranians, the early days of the war offered a glimmer of hope. But when the government didn’t collapse as Trump seemed to expect, he escalated the attacks in a way that can best be described as spiteful.

On Tuesday, when Trump threatened that a “whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” it was a wake-up call for many who had initially supported his campaign in Iran. He is now squandering the trust that generations of Iranians have placed in the U.S. as a force for good.

Despite the deaths of thousands of Iranians and the destruction of civilian infrastructure and historical sites, it’s not too late for Trump to live up to his promises. Doing so would cost much less than he’s already spent on unnecessarily prolonging this war.

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In it, I’m still being held in the last cell I inhabited there. My interrogator explains that I was supposed to be released, but the deal fell apart at the last minute and I am destined to remain a hostage until another offer appears on the table — which could take years.

It’s a natural nightmare, because that’s almost what happened. I’ve woken up from it so often that, after a while, I learned to recognize I was only dreaming.

Over time the dream has evolved.

In recent years, when it comes, I’m back in Evin prison after having been released in a prisoner swap — as I was in real life — but inexplicably I return to Iran and get taken hostage again. That version makes me feel particularly stupid.

The iteration I experienced for the first time a few days ago was the most jarring yet: I had been released, had returned to Iran, was taken hostage again — and war had broken out all around the prison. I woke up, heart pounding and in a cold sweat, terrified for the many hostages, as well as thousands of political prisoners, currently being held in Iran under the most precarious conditions.

Today, along with dozens of other former hostages, their families and many advocates, I attended the annual gathering at the State Department marking U.S. Hostage and Wrongful Detainee Day — a reunion of a unique club that none of us wants to belong to.

This was the third time the event has been held. March 9 marks the day FBI agent Robert Levinson was abducted in Iran in 2007. His family, along with mine and many others, have pressed the government to do more for Americans held hostage abroad.

It was striking to see Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of the FBI Kash Patel, and the National Security Council’s Senior Director for Counterterrorism Sebastian Gorka all committing significant time during the war, on a day when oil prices surged, to spend time with and address the concerns of hostage families.

There are very few issues on which I agree with the current administration, but their strong record of prioritizing American hostages is admirable.

In his remarks, Rubio told those gathered that President Trump is focused on “ending the cycle in which Americans are somehow viewed as a valuable commodity, that you can grab an American, you can unjustly hold them, and then try to trade them later on for some diplomatic concession or some political concession.”

I want them to succeed in that goal, because hostage taking is a problem that’s gotten exponentially worse largely because the U.S. government will go to great lengths to bring Americans home.

But we’ve also made incredible progress in elevating this issue and depoliticizing the most important aspect of the endeavor: the safe return of our compatriots being used as leverage by aggressive foreign actors.

As I looked around the room today, it was also an important reminder that people do come home.

I saw my friends Emad Shargi and Nizar Zakka, who were both held by the same forces of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Tehran. Nizar inherited my bed when I got out in 2016. He would have wait for another three years until he came home in 2019. Since his return, he’s become a strong ally in the global fight against hostage taking.

And, Emad, whose family I grew close with during his imprisonment when I produced a Washington Post documentary about their efforts to free him. He came home in 2023 in another negotiated settlement.

I ran into Jorge Toledo, a former oil executive who was part of the so called “Citgo-6,” held hostage for years by the Maduro regime in Venezuela. An incredibly thoughtful speaker, who I’ve had the chance to share a stage with, he told me he’s published a book about the lessons he learned during his 1775 days of captivity, which I’m eager to read.

Everywhere I looked, I saw the Hostage and Wrongful Detainee Flag, designed by David Ewald, my co-professor in a first-of-its-kind course at the University of Oregon on hostage storytelling and advocacy.

The gathering offered a lot of hope.

But I couldn’t stop thinking about the uncertainty being experienced by the current group of hostages in Iran that includes nationals of the U.S., U.K., Australia, Japan, Sweden, Romania and who knows how many other countries.

It’s concern over their fate that inspired my subconscious to develop this new version of my dream — one that I desperately hope is the last in the series.

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It’s a segment about all the many gifts that were presented to the 52 American hostages when they were released after their 444 day ordeal.

Iran and hostages are what it’s all about. My dad is in it, along with a storyline about rugs that connected the Rezaian family to the Iran hostage saga long before I was taken hostage myself.

And it features two journalist legends: Walter Cronkite, who was the greatest anchorman of them all, and Charles Osgood, who could rhyme his way through any story. It’s informative, honest, innovative and funny.

It’s a time capsule from my own life, given to me when I appeared on the CBS Morning News in January 2019, when I published my memoir “Prisoner,” about my own time as a hostage in Iran.

As they say, history rhymes. But not as well as Charles Osgood could.