Word: rafsanjani
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...appears to tolerate in the unending hostage dilemma. All week the White House navigated between the same poles of military threat and diplomatic engagement that earlier Administrations had tried. Yet by week's end there was a tantalizing glimpse of flexibility: Iran's new President, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, offered to "help" find a solution to the hostage problem, thus raising the hope that Bush will not be boxed in by the implacable hostility of Iran as his predecessors were during the reign of the late Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini...
While Iranian "moderates" have a way of disappointing Western expectations, Rafsanjani is reportedly convinced that Iran failed to win its costly war with Iraq because of its international isolation, which deprived the country of desperately needed military technology and hardware. In a speech Friday, the new Iranian President was remarkably conciliatory: "I tell the White House, the problem of Lebanon has solutions, the freeing of the hostages has solutions, reasonable, prudent solutions." Rafsanjani offered: "Come let us approach the problem reasonably. We too will help solve the problems there...
...Even so, Rafsanjani's earlier words of conciliation toward a nation the Ayatullah Khomeini labeled the Great Satan indicate a major change since Khomeini's death in June. Rafsanjani appears to have moved with surprising quickness to consolidate his leadership against challenges from more radical mullahs, particularly Interior Minister Ali Akbar Mohtashami, the principal link between Tehran and Hizballah in Lebanon. There are signs that the new President is also gaining influence over Hizballah, as he must if he is to deliver on any promises to help in the hostage situation. When Hizballah leaders went to Tehran several weeks...
...still far too early for the U.S. to draw firm conclusions about Rafsanjani. Virtually everything in the region is so riddled with confusion that no one last week could say for sure whether Higgins was executed on Monday, as his captors claimed, or months ago and the tape of his execution saved for use at a later, advantageous moment. It was not even certain that it was Higgins whose body was shown in the tape. Forensic experts at the FBI were carefully measuring and comparing the features of the man in the videotape with photographs of the captured Marine...
Gorbachev views the reconciliation as a way to gain Iran's restraint in exporting its brand of religious fundamentalism to the Soviet Union's Islamic republics. Rafsanjani said the two sides had agreed on a policy of noninterference in each other's affairs, but then implied that Moscow could do more for its Muslim population. Said he: "Mr. Gorbachev has a long way to go in terms of providing people freedoms." Nevertheless, Rafsanjani apparently liked what he saw: he added two stops to his itinerary -- Leningrad and Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, a republic on the doorstep of Iran with...