American hikers Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer were released yesterday after over two years in Iranian prison on allegations of trespassing and spying for the US. Fattal and Bauer were arrested, along with travelling companion Sarah Shroud, while hiking in Iraqi Kurdistan in July 2011. On August 20, 2011, Fattal and Bauer were sentenced to eight years in prison. The American hikers were released yesterday on $500,000 bail and taken to Oman where they were reunited with their families.

Some analysts believe that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad strategically announced the release of Fattal and Bauer just weeks before his visit to New York for the annual UN General Assembly in order to receive a warmer welcome by the US and project a noble and gracious image among fellow world leaders at the UN. Others believe it was a tactical move in the ongoing political feud between Ahmadinejad and Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Ahamenei. Only a day after his announcement, the Iranian judiciary denied the president's statement and said the hikers' release was 'not imminent.'

Democracy Now's Amy Goodman interviews Shon Meckfessel, who was also travelling with the trio in 2009, but who stayed at the hotel the morning of their hike because of a cold. 

Three American hikers who have been detained in Iran since July 31st, including Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd, and Josh Fattal, apparently unwittingly strayed over the border from Iraqi Kurdistan, according to a fourth member of their party, Shon Meckfessel. Meckfessel, who did not join his friends on the ill-fated hike, wrote in a statement that the four were travelling in Iraqi Kurdistan on vacation, and his friends went off on a recommended hike to popular tourist destination Ahmed Awa, an area known for its lovely waterfall. Apparently unaware that Ahmed Awa was near the Iranian border, the three were detained while hiking in the area by Iranian authorities, and have yet to be released. Meckfessel writes, "I hope that people understand my friends' presence in the area for what it was: a simple and very regrettable mistake."

With the recent release of journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee from North Korean custody, thanks to a deus ex machina intervention from former U.S. President Bill Clinton, the question being asked in the Iran case is where diplomacy goes next. Have Clinton's actions in North Korea piqued the interest of the Ahmadinejad regime, perhaps empowering them to turn these hikers into pawns in a greater diplomatic game with the United States? Iran has detained many Americans over the years, most recently arresting Iranian-American scholar Kian Tajbakhsh, charged with instigating post-election violence.

The story of one of these hikers, freelance journalist and documentary photographer Shane Bauer, was featured in today's episode of Democracy Now below, which airs on Link TV. Bauer, an Arabic speaker and graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, delivered a report for Democracy Now in February 2009 on U.S. military alliances with Iraq's Sunni militias.