The Bazaar Is Open

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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."

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.

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.

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.

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."