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- <text id=89TT2178>
- <title>
- Aug. 21, 1989: The Bazaar Is Open
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1989
- Aug. 21, 1989 How Bush Decides
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- NATION, Page 23
- The Bazaar Is Open
- </hdr><body>
- <p>But the haggling over the hostages could take forever
- </p>
- <p> The rules for a successful negotiation are pretty
- straightforward. All sides must want to make a deal, and
- everyone must come away with something. Last week it looked as
- if most of the parties in the complex hostage drama were at
- least talking about a deal. But satisfying everyone poses such
- a monumental challenge that any solution will take a long, long
- time -- if it comes at all.
- </p>
- <p> The rapid movement provoked by Israel's kidnaping of
- Shi`ite Sheik Abdul Karim Obeid has given way to a lengthy
- process of public posturing and private dickering. Israel
- offered the Shi`ites a simple swap: your guys (Obeid and 150
- Shi`ite prisoners) for our guys (three captured Israeli
- soldiers), plus the 15 Westerners held hostage. But Jerusalem's
- agenda is not interchangeable with Washington's: while Israel
- would probably jump at a deal returning its prisoners, even
- without the foreign hostages, it would reject any that did not
- bring home its three soldiers.
- </p>
- <p> The Bush Administration staked out a surprisingly supple
- position designed to maximize the chances for a successful
- negotiation without succumbing to an outright trade that would
- violate American policy against ransoming hostages. George Bush
- repeatedly made clear his willingness to talk to anyone. "If
- there are changes taking place, signals that are shifting, I
- don't want to miss a signal," said the President as he sent
- forth a stream of messages by television and telex. His main
- objective: to open a dialogue with Iran, which the
- Administration believes can influence, though not necessarily
- deliver, freedom for the hostages.
- </p>
- <p> In a series of interviews and statements aimed at newly
- elected President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a pragmatist
- considered eager to end the isolation of the Khomeini era and
- repair his shattered economy, Bush held out the possibility of
- warmer relations in exchange for help in freeing the U.S.
- hostages. While Bush did not disavow the Reagan-era prohibition
- against direct bargaining with terrorists, he shifted ground
- enough to make some kind of negotiation possible. His private
- communiques, sent via the Swiss embassy in Tehran and other
- intermediaries, elicited encouraging replies from Rafsanjani.
- </p>
- <p> Administration officials hope to convince Iran that hostage
- taking has few benefits and obstructs the potentially lucrative
- flow of trade and commerce. This includes Iranian assets,
- estimated by Tehran at $11 billion, that have been frozen since
- the U.S. embassy in Iran was overrun in 1979. Restoring the flow
- might give Iran incentive to press for the release of the
- captives and a halt to terrorism.
- </p>
- <p> The Shi`ite terrorists holding the hostages stated their
- position the way they often do. In the southern Lebanese town
- of Qleia, houses shook from the blast of a bomb attack on an
- Israeli convoy that wounded five soldiers and one militiaman
- from the Israeli-backed South Lebanon Army. "We'll show them
- that we are hard food to chew," proclaimed Hizballah's military
- chief in Beirut. Other terrorists sought revenge for the
- humiliation of Obeid's kidnaping.
- </p>
- <p> Yet the mood of the terrorists seemed to be shifting. The
- spiritual leader of Hizballah, Sheik Mohammed Hussein
- Fadlallah, modified his tough position by calling on all parties
- to help end the ordeal of the hostages. Explained Martin Kramer,
- an expert in Shi`ite affairs at Tel Aviv University: "They want
- to regain their dignity and pride and then proceed to
- negotiate."
- </p>
- <p> The Shi`ites would have to participate, however indirectly,
- in any deal. Even friendly relations between Bush and Rafsanjani
- are no guarantee of the captives' return. While Iran exerts
- influence over Hizballah, which it has been bankrolling since
- 1982 at an estimated $60 million a year, no one knows precisely
- how much control Tehran has over the disposition of the
- hostages. At least seven factions, each with its own agenda,
- have claimed responsibility for one or more kidnapings since the
- wave of terrorism began seven years ago. In the end, the
- particular interests of these small and shadowy groups that
- operate under the loose umbrella of Hizballah will have to be
- taken into account.
- </p>
- <p> The hostages are also pawns in the games played by powerful
- Middle East states. In Iran, they are part of a domestic power
- struggle between Rafsanjani and his hard-line Interior
- Minister, Ali Akbar Mohtashami, who served as paymaster to
- Hizballah in the early 1980s. Experts feel that Mohtashami's
- ability to sustain the hostage holding will be a litmus test of
- his power under the newly elected President. Syria, which
- maintains about 25,000 troops in Lebanon, could improve its
- relations with the West by rescuing the hostages, but it wields
- little influence over the Shi`ites who hold them. Still, the
- U.S. believes Syria could use its intelligence network to locate
- the hostages and flex its military muscle to press for their
- release.
- </p>
- <p> Syria, in fact, appears just as powerless as other would-be
- peacekeepers in Lebanon, which has been reduced by 14 years of
- civil war to a lawless slum where kidnaping and murder are the
- norm. The fate of the hostages is tied as much to the bitter
- backyard struggle for power in Beirut as to international
- diplomacy, and that struggle has grown worse. Over the past
- five months, artillery duels between the Lebanese Christian
- General Michel Aoun and the Syrians have killed at least 600
- people and wounded nearly 1600.
- </p>
- <p> Last week the shelling sharply intensified, spreading well
- beyond Beirut's boundaries and leading some observers to
- speculate that Syria might be making a decisive assault. "Until
- the problem of Lebanon is solved," says a Lebanese diplomat,
- "there will never be a resolution of the hostages."
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
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