Up to the last moments of the release of Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian from Iranian captivity, Iran and its leaders proved they were only about playing games with American lives.

After being charged with espionage and jailed for 18 months in Iran, California-born Rezaian was finally released this past weekend in a prisoner swap with the U.S. But Iran made sure it had the upper hand all the way up to the last minute of the 25-hour ordeal. The Washington Post reports:

For hours this past weekend, though, it was not clear that the deal would actually work out. As a Swiss air force jet waited on the tarmac at Tehran’s airport to take Rezaian and other former prisoners to freedom, Salehi [wife] and her mother-in-law, Mary Rezaian, mysteriously vanished as diplomats, friends and Jason’s brother, Ali, frantically tried to find them. The women later said they had been in the hands of Iran’s hard-line Revolutionary Guard Corps. It was unclear whether the incident was due to miscommunication or whether someone was trying to destroy the deal.

Rezaian's Iranian wife, Yeganeh Salehi, and his mother were tossed back and forth for hours between different rooms at the Tehran airport as they waited to see their husband and son. According to the report, as the two waited in the airport, an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps security officer, disguised in a surgical mask, approached them and ordered them to turn over their cell phones before driving them to an undisclosed area where state-run media was waiting to ask questions. It seemed the gathered journalists wanted the man's family to lavish praise on Iran for mercifully releasing him (much like they did in the propaganda video with the U.S. sailors.)

After that, the women were moved to a reception hall plastered with portraits of Iranian leaders, described as "colder than a meat locker." There, they were fed but still kept in the dark about what was going to happen. Then around 1 a.m., another transfer took the women to a "warmer room" wherea female official guarded them alongside multiple IRGC officers all wearing surgical masks. Little did the women know, they were soon going to be on the plane with Rezaian and on their way to the United States.

But Iran wasn't through playing games. As the women were finally released and escorted by a Swiss diplomat to the awaiting jet, they were detained once more. From the Post:

Unbeknownst to the women, the U.S. government had learned early Sunday that the Iranians wanted to let Rezaian and the other former prisoners leave but delay Salehi’s departure. Only after Secretary of State John F. Kerry called Zarif did the Iranian prosecutor general issue an order allowing Salehi and Mary Rezaian to board the Swiss jet…

But when the group reached the airport, the two women were detained again. Salehi did not have a passport, and, according to U.S. diplomats, there was a hiccup over the flight manifest.

The harrowing ordeal is finally over for the Rezaian's, but a senior U.S. official, speaking on anonymity, assessed, "The Iranians were playing games to the end."

Now, imagine the "games" Iran is going to play with the world as the Obama administration releases $100 billion back into their terror-funding hands under the nuclear deal.