Where's The Fire?

"My feeling is that the issue of the hostages is moving toward a solution," said Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani last week. With those words, Rafsanjani stoked the rumor mill that has been working at full blast since late February, when the Tehran Times called for the unconditional release of the 18 Western hostages, eight of them Americans, held in Lebanon for as long as five years. The day after the editorial appeared, Sheik Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, the spiritual leader of Hizballah, a Lebanese group that holds some of the victims, added to the hopeful speculation by saying, "We have to think of finding realistic and humanitarian means to free the foreign hostages." After Rafsanjani's statement last week, the Bush Administration cautiously allowed, "We're encouraged by the comments."

While it is encouraging that Rafsanjani has publicly expressed a desire for the hostages' release, Western intelligence agencies have yet to detect any activity. Rafsanjani's own goals seem plain. Recently, he has been seeking to borrow as much as $27 billion from Western sources to rebuild his country's economy, which needs money and technology. He also aims to end Iran's diplomatic isolation from both the West and his Arab neighbors. With those goals in mind, he has apparently launched a hostage-release initiative and is seeking maximum publicity so that even if his effort fails, his good intentions are made known to the world.

Whatever Rafsanjani's intentions, it is Iran's radical opposition, led by former Interior Minister Ali Akbar Mohtashami, that maintains the closest ties with the hostage takers -- and even Mohtashami has only limited sway over them. Last week the Revolutionary Justice Organization, which has three hostages, vowed, "There is no intention to release hostages." Meanwhile, it was disclosed that last month President Bush accepted a phone call from an impostor claiming to be Rafsanjani. Though they do not know for sure, White House officials think the hoax was perhaps perpetrated by Mohtashami's faction to embarrass Rafsanjani.