Here's the $400M question: Why OK now, but not for Jim?

Jim Foley, a war correspondent for GlobalPost, had no fear and wanted to be in the hot zone. (Nicole Tung/AP)

The announcement earlier this month that the Obama administration sent $400 million to Iran only after they had freed four hostages is sure to have been a bitter pill for Diane and John Foley of Rochester, who were threatened with prosecution if they tried to pay ransom to free their son, James Foley, who was beheaded by ISIS two years ago.

Diane Foley declined this week to comment on the recent cash payment that countermanded the government's own ransom-paying policy, but the government's reversal must have been excruciatingly painful for the family since they, themselves, were threatened with prosecution when they began raising money to pay ransom for James Foley before he was beheaded by ISIS in August of 2014.

Shortly after his death, Diane Foley revealed to ABC News that the U.S. government threatened her family with prosecution should they raise money to pay her son's ransom, but what shocked her the most was how such a devastating message was delivered.

"I was surprised there was so little compassion," Diane Foley told ABC.

"It was very upsetting because we were essentially told to trust... that the way they were handling things would bring our son home," Diane Foley told the network.

In June the president finally took action that clears the way for families of current hostages to take actions the U.S. government has long said put Americans abroad at greater risk. While no formal changes were being made to a law prohibiting material support for terrorists, the Justice Department indicated it would not hold families accountable if they pursue ransom payments.

While in essence the new ruling vindicates what the Foleys had attempted in pursuing the raising of ransom money to save their son, it is certainly far too little, too late.

President Obama facing fallout over ransom for hostages. (Reuters)

In January the U.S. government procured the $400 million from central banks in Switzerland and the Netherlands. All in foreign currency, the cash was stacked on wooden pallets and flown to Tehran in an unmarked cargo plane.

The money represented the first installment of a $1.7 billion settlement that the administration reached with Iran to resolve a decades-old failed arms deal signed before the Iranian revolution in 1979.

US prisoners held by Iran and released included Saeed Abedini, Nosratollah Khosravi, Amir Hekmati, a former Marine, and Washington Post reporter Jason ­Rezaian.

But with that settlement coming at the same time as formal implementation of the Iran nuclear deal, and the huge shipment of cash sent only after the four hostages were freed, the optics with America's relationship with Iran and America's flip-flopping on ransom policy look feckless if not malfeasant.

It's also ironic that the $1.7 billion repayment is for arms not delivered due to the Iranian revolution which allowed the taking of 52 American hostages for 444 days. Those hostages were finally released the moment President Reagan completed his oath of office on Jan. 20, 1981.