BIDDING FOR THE HOSTAGES
Charles Glass on the concessions that
Iran expects from the West for the release of prisoners whom it holds
My friend is no longer alone. President George Bush and his secretary of state have joined him in making public dis- plays of gratitude to the guilty. The parties they thanked on Sunday for using their Influence' to obtain Professor Robert Polhill's freedom are the very people re- sponsible for his kidnapping on 24 January 1987 and his detention for 1,183 days and nights. Even as his spokesman thanked Iran and Syria, President Bush insisted from his fishing boat off the Florida coast on Sunday that the United States had not negotiated directly with the 'hostage tak- ers'. Why should it have? Why bother to talk to the monkeys in Beirut when you can deal with the organ-grinders in Teheran?
Despite the obvious hypocrisy surround- ing the praise of Iran and Syria, President Bush had as little choice in the matter, so long as he wanted the seven remaining American hostages in Beirut to come home, as my Lebanese friend had. Some- times, swallowing a little pride and main- taining a small fiction may be worth the price. Before anyone jumps to condemn my friend or President Bush, at the same time praising Margaret Thatcher's obstina- cy in refusing to come to terms with Iran to free Britain's four hostages, let him spend a few months locked up alone in an empty room in Beirut's southern suburbs, not knowing from one day to the next whether the unlocking of the door means either the delivery of the day's breakfast or the
prelude to an execution. Hezbollah mur- dered the American hostages William Buckley and Colonel William Higgins, and those who remain behind in Beirut now might just as easily be murdered as set free. The time has come to save their lives.
The hostages themselves, their families and the American administration have been forced to play along with what Robert Fisk, reporting from West Beirut in the Independent, rightly called 'a charade' in a `theatre of the absurd'. The press, on the other hand, is not required to follow the government lead. Journalists do not have to accept Iran's terms of reference: the lie that the mullahs in Teheran, in exchange for a sympathetic approach from Washing-
The press must realise also that a deal is under way, just as surely as one was when negotiations in 1985 and 1986 between the Reagan administration and Teheran led to the staggered releases of the American hostages Benjamin Weir, Lawrence Jenco and David Jacobsen. That arrangement involved the illegal sale of American arms to Iran, sales that enabled Iran to continue its war with Iraq. This arrangement involves something else, and it is not unreasonable to ask what price is being, or is about to be, paid. The most likely concessions that would please Iran without being unpalatable to the United States might be: (1) American withdrawal of export credits (in various forms totalling $1.25 billion a year) to Iran's enemy, Iraq; (2) more stringent application of American and other West- ern laws prohibiting the export to Iraq of sophisticated weapons and of 'dual use' technology (this appears to have begun already with the joint United States-British customs seizure of nuclear capacitors and the British confiscation of the so-called 'big gun' steel tubes); (3) condemnation by the United States of Iraq for its abysmal human rights record, certainly one of the worst on earth; (4) American release of Iranian assets frozen for the last ten years (this too has already begun, with United States-Iranian negotiations at the Hague making considerable progress; (5) an im- provement in the Western approach to Iran that would allow it to receive interna- tional assistance and Western non-military technology to rebuild the country after the Iran-Iraq war; (6) American pressure on Israel to release its hostages, both Lebanese and Palestinian, as a way for Iran to pass some of the benefits on to its Lebanese surrogates in Hezbollah; and (7) a promise from the United States that it will resist the temptation, once all the American hostages are free, to bomb Hezbollah bases in Lebanon.
None of these concessions, however unpalatable they may be when made under duress, violates American law or is un- acceptable in itself, unlike the previous arms sales to Iran. In fact, many of them might and probably should have been offered and Iran never ordered the kidnap- ping of Americans in Lebanon. The details and the architects of the US-Iran under- standing remain to be revealed, but the inquiring journalist should not ignore the additional price of Syria's co-operation. A friend in Damascus told me shortly before the release on Sunday of Robert Polhill that Syria was at last becoming media-wise. This was about two in the afternoon in Damascus, noon in London and, most importantly, seven of a Sunday morning in New York. At this stage, the kidnappers or the Syrians were keeping up the suspense by withholding all informa- tion as to which hostage was to be released and when. 'You know, Charlie,' my Syrian friend said, 'the government is beginning to understand that if they turn him over now, everyone in America will be asleep. But, if they wait a few hours, all the Americans will see it on television.'
And so, all of America did, when the American networks interrupted the usual Sunday afternoon basketball games and golf to show the Syrian foreign minister symbolically handing over Professor Polhill to the American ambassador. The Syrians were not entirely prepared: they had per- mitted camera crews to place their mic- rophones on a table where Professor Polhill, the minister and the ambassador would make statements. They had, howev- er, neglected to place chairs at the table, so, when the three men entered the room, they stood at the table, several feet above the microphones, and little they said could be heard on the live broadcast. No doubt they will iron that one out for the next performance — television producers out- side the foreign ministry all day on their walkie-talkies, network satellite dishes to broadcast live from the ministry, millions of dollars worth of communications equip- ment to send the image of a hoarse and weakened man thanking Syria for its role in obtaining his freedom. The Syrians nonetheless made the most of the unfamil- iar technology. They put a correspondent from Syrian television in the car that took Professor Polhill from Lebanon into Syria. Syrian television then offered to sell the exclusive interview to each of the Amer- ican networks for £100,000. When each in turn said it would not pay, Syria gave them all the videotape for nothing. The Syrian interviewer asked Professor Polhill only one question, a question he would never ask a Syrian in the street: 'What does the word "freedom" mean to you?'
For the Syrian government, 'freedom' for a hostage means hearing the Americans say thank you. President Bush thanked Syria. Secretary of State James Baker thanked Syria. Edward Djeredjian, the American ambassador in Damascus, thanked Syria. Professor Polhill, un- doubtedly on embassy advice, thanked Syria. From the time the first American hostage, David Dodge, was released in 1983, everyone has thanked Syria whenev- er an American has come home. Syria wants recognition for its role as a regional power-broker. It wants also to be certain the United States goes so far in its grati- tude as to support its policies in Lebanon and to ignore the evidence pointing to Ahmed Jibril, the Syrians' own man in the Palestinian movement, as one of the cul- prits in supplying the bomb that exploded over Lockerbie aboard Pan Am 103. That dossier will gather dust so long as the US needs Syrian help in freeing the remaining seven Americans in Lebanon. After that, the United States may be so grateful as to forget about Jibril altogether.
Syria did in fact help. Foreign Minister Farouq al-Shara flew to Teheran to discuss the issue. The Syrian military intelligence chief in Lebanon, General Ghazi Kenaan, drove Professor Polhill out of Beirut in his own car. Other than that, however, no one is saying _what Syria did, but everyone is nonetheless exceedingly grateful.
Oddly enough, President Bush did not thank Hezbollah. Yet they too received thanks of a sort. Sources in Beirut told Ihsan Hijazi, a senior and respected New York Times correspondent, that Iran gave Hezbollah money and the sort of weapons no self-respecting Lebanese militia can do without: 'tanks, armoured personnel car- riers and multi-barrelled rocket launchers', as payment for freeing Professor Polhill. My own sources in Beirut said Iran had given one Hezbollah leader, Sheikh Sobhi Tofailli £1 million. It is a difficult story to check, but it does not sound unlikely. Iran paid Hezbollah to kidnap and hold fore- igners. It might as well pay to let them go. The bulk of the gratitude must go to Ayatollah Ali Akbar Mbhtashemi, the former Iranian interior minister and for- mer ambassador to Syria. While based in Syria just after the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, Mohtashemi helped to create Hezbollah. He personally directed the kidnapping of foreigners in Lebanon. He continued to run kidnapping operations when he moved back to Teheran, and he still commands the loyalty of the many men in Hezbollah who are paid out of his budget. It would be instructive to learn how Iran's president, Hashemi Rafsanjani, and others in the government who apparently want more normal relations with the United States persuaded him to give up a hostage. A scholar who studies Iran and has published an excellent book on the country suggested that Mohtashemi may simply have agreed to take a step back and say, 'Fine. Let some hostages go. If you can get something worthwhile for them, I will not oppose you. If you fail, we will keep the rest.' Or he may have decided at long last that now was the time to play the hostage card, because they were invest- ments that had not paid dividends since the last Frenchmen were released. They appear to be paying dividends again.
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