August 26, 2025

by Dr. Walid Phares

An American patriot was kidnapped off U.S.-allied soil, tortured, killed—and still lies mutilated in a foreign morgue. I call on President Trump: bring Jamshid Sharmahd home.

This is the saga of an American patriot who stood against the world’s most dangerous jihadist regime and paid with his life. It is also the testimony of how our own government abandoned him in the most shameful hostage bargain of modern times.

A Life of Freedom

Jamshid “Jimmy” Sharmahd was no ordinary man. Born in Iran, raised in Germany, and later a proud U.S. national living in Los Angeles, he was more than a family man—he was an intellectual warrior. Through his broadcasts and writings, he challenged the Islamist regime in Tehran, offering millions of Iranians a vision of liberty and national revival. For that, he was hunted.

In 2009, the regime sent agents to Los Angeles to assassinate him. Jimmy spent years assisting U.S. law enforcement to put terrorists on American soil behind bars. His story reminds us starkly of FBI agent Bob Levinson, who was also left in Iran to be killed by the terrorists.

In July 2020, the unbelievable happened, that still brings chills down every traveler’s spine: While on a business trip, he had an unexpected layover in Dubai. There, Jimmy was brazenly kidnapped by the Islamic regime’s agents—snatched from U.S.-allied soil and dragged to Oman and from there into Tehran’s torture chambers. When I saw the footage of him broadcasted on TV in August 2020, blindfolded, beaten and accused by the the regime of being a spy of the CIA, Mossad, German intelligence and “corruption on earth,” I knew these fabricated accusations under Islamists are punishable by hanging, I was stunned. How could this happen in a U.S.-partner country? How could we so easily be snatched by terrorists from a country under our own protection? Why was there no investigation? Why no outcry? I remember asking myself: what is the Biden administration doing while one of its own nationals is abducted in broad daylight from allied territory facing torture and possible death? The silence was deafening.

The Abandonment — As I Witnessed It

From that moment in 2020 until 2024, the administration abandoned their hostage. No public mention of his case. No meeting with his family. No pressure on his captors. For four long years, Jimmy’s daughter Gazelle fought alone while her father was starved, tortured, and kept hanging by a thread—every day a gamble between life and death. The images of hostages in Gaza today capture that same terror; Jimmy lived it for years.

Finally, in a desperate attempt after four years of silence, Gazelle staged a sit-in protest outside the U.S. State Department during the heat of summer 2024. Day after day, she stood outside in the blazing sun, supported by the Iranian-American community and hostage family groups, holding her father’s picture—not asking for a deal, not demanding concessions, but pleading simply for her government to speak to her. Inside those walls, officials were negotiating billion-dollar ransom deals with the Ayatollahs for others.

At the end of her long strike, the State Department finally agreed to see her. But as it turned out the meeting was not to help—it only foreshadowed the betrayal that followed. Visible to the entire nation on television: the Biden administration announced that five U.S. hostages would be coming home. And Jimmy? He was erased. He was deliberately excluded, never acknowledged, as if he had never existed.

As a foreign policy adviser for many years I was bewildered: is this truly America? To watch citizens being brought back to safety while another American patriot is erased without mention—while his daughter stands outside, stripped of the protection every family should expect from its government. This was not just about one case. It was about whether Americans abandoned to terrorists could ever again trust their government. In Jimmy’s case, the answer was no. It was cruelty beyond belief.

A Targeted Execution

The last chance the Biden administration had to save their hostage came in March 2024. Tehran issued an ultimatum: Hungry for more ransom money they sued the U.S. administration including 52 U.S. officials and presidents to pay another $2.5 billion within two months, or Jimmy would be executed. Washington did not even react. The clock ran out.

On October 28, 2024—just days before the U.S. election—the regime killed Jimmy and declared it brazenly to the world. The timing was no accident, one week before the U.S. elections: they saw Donald Trump’s possible return, and they feared he would never have left Jimmy behind.

A Family that Fights

Yet his family did not yield. Gazelle turned her anguish into one of the fiercest human-rights campaigns I have ever seen. She testified before Congress, the European Parliament, and the UN’s permanent missions at security council, forcing Jimmy’s story into the halls of power. She joined forces with the Jewish community to advocate for the hostages in Gaza and minorities in the Middle East who were facing terror by jihadist powers. She exposed the Islamist regime’s crimes, and in doing so, she became a target of the Ayatollahs herself. The regime may have killed Jimmy, but his defiance lives on in her voice.

The Call to America

Today Jimmy’s mutilated body lies abroad, waiting to be brought home. No administration can undo his murder. But the bare minimum now is to honor him. As a witness to Jimmy’s saga and the plight of the Iranian people fighting against the biggest terrorist organization and threat to the United States, I call on our Administration, the honorable President Trump, and Secretary Rubio to:

•    Bring Jamshid Sharmahd home to California for a dignified burial.

•    Receive his family at the White House and acknowledge their sacrifice.

•  Recognize him as an American hero who died for freedom, human rights, and in the fight against America’s enemies.

The Islamic regime murdered Jamshid because his voice was powerful enough to shake them. Washington under the Biden administration abandoned him because his story was an inconvenient truth in the face of their appeasement policies. America must not let this abandonment stand as the last chapter. This is not just a matter of national security as every terrorist regime is watching our reaction— this is a matter of our nations honor and values.

President Trump Bring Jimmy home now. Before his remains disappear. Let his name be honored. Don’t leave an American hostage family alone in a time of need. And let every enemy of America know: we do not leave our own behind.

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Dr. Walid Phares is a national security expert, author, and former Donald Trump foreign policy advisor