Tantalizing Words from Tehran

By Thomas A. Sancton

Hints about the hostages amid an escalating war

The words were encouraging, but their meaning was far from clear. First Ha-jatolislam Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, speaker of the Iranian parliament, declared at an Algiers press conference that the U.S. had accepted "in principle" all of Tehran's conditions for the release of the 52 American hostages. Rafsanjani added this tantalizing statement: "If the U.S. decides tonight to implement the conditions, then we will release the hostages tomorrow."

Next day Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Ali Raja'i broke a two-week silence on the hostage question by also stating that the U.S. had accepted the Iranian demands "in principle." Raja'i said that his government would seek further "clarifications." Those remarks were the first reaction Washington had heard from Tehran's leaders since Algerian intermediaries delivered the U.S. response to Iran's hostage demands two weeks ago.

What did it all mean? Some Washington policymakers took Raja'i's statement as a sign that the Iranian government might be nearing a decision. In the words of one State Department official, they saw "a glimmer of hope" in the fact that Tehran had neither flatly rejected the U.S. response nor publicly discussed its contents. Perhaps in an effort to keep some kind of dialogue going, Secretary of State Edmund Muskie told reporters that the U.S. has indeed "accepted the four points in principle as a useful basis for the resolution of the conflict."

The four demands issued by Iran's parliament on Nov. 2 include: 1) a U.S. pledge of noninterference in Iranian affairs, 2) the unfreezing of $13 billion in U.S.-held Iranian assets, 3) cancellation of all American claims against the Tehran government, 4) the return of the late Shah's fortune. The U.S. response is said to have pledged noninterference; it also attempted to explain why complex legal obstacles might prevent a prompt carrying out of the remaining demands.

As Tehran mulled over its next move, fighting in the Iran-Iraq war reached perhaps its highest level since Sept. 22--the day Iraqi Strongman Saddam Hussein sent his forces into Iran to enforce Baghdad's claim to the disputed Shatt al Arab waterway. In one of the war's bloodiest battles so far, the Iraqis launched an assault on the Iranian town of Susangerd in western Khuzistan province. Backed up by heavy artillery, Iraqi tank forces smashed their way into the eastern section of the town and engaged Iranian defenders in fierce house-to-house fighting. At week's end the combined death toll was said to have reached 1,400.

On the southern front, the Iraqi command claimed to have killed 150 Iranians who had vainly sought to break out of the besieged refinery city of Abadan. Iranian bombers, meanwhile, struck at Fao, a major Iraqi port, and at oil installations near the Kuwait frontier. For the second time in four days, Iranian plane-fired rockets hit the tiny Kuwaiti border post of Al-Abdali, prompting a sharp protest from Kuwait and rekindling fears that the other gulf states might be drawn into the fighting.

Iraq's assault on Susangerd appeared to have been motivated by both strategic and political aims. Militarily, the fall of Susangerd would give the Iraqis control of a key highway leading to the provincial capital of Ahwaz, 30 miles to the southeast. Most experts, however, attributed the timing of the attack to Saddam Hussein's desire for an imposing victory on the eve of the Arab League Summit, scheduled for Nov. 25 in Amman.

Last week, however, representatives of Syria and the Palestine Liberation Or ganization stalked out of a preparatory foreign ministers' meeting in the Jordanian capital. They claimed that inter-Arab disputes, aggravated by the gulf war, were being ignored in the proposed agenda, and therefore wanted a postponement.

Syria, which is Iraq's neighbor and bitter enemy, is supported by Algeria, Libya and South Yemen as well as the P.L.O. Mean while, Iraq and its sympathizers, includ ing Jordan and Saudi Arabia, sought des perately to save the conference. As a compromise, the Syrians proposed a se ries of smaller meetings in place of the full 21 -member conference. At week's end, Syria announced that it would boy cott the summit; whether Damascus' fellow hard-liners would attend remained in doubt.

United Nations Envoy Olof Palme flew to the warring capitals last week to explore cease-fire possibilities. But the former Swedish Prime Minister hit a stone wall in Tehran. President Abolhassan Banisadr refused to consider "any peace proposal as long as Iraqi armed forces and spies are in Iran."

The day before his meeting with Palme, Banisadr had taken the same tough line in a speech to more than 1 million cheering supporters who jammed Teh ran's Azadi Square to celebrate the Shi'ite Muslim holiday of 'Ashura.* After the traditional procession, in which zealots flagellated themselves with chains and some slashed their foreheads with swords, Banisadr gave a martial twist to the religious theme of sacrifice. Said he: "The people of Iran are ready for martyrdom, and Iran will not make any peace with the Iraqi invaders . . . Iran will not forgive the Saddam Hussein government for its crime and will carry the war to decisive victory."

In fact, neither side was in a position to claim victory. But no one who has observed the bizarre unfolding of the Iranians' revolution could underestimate their capacity to kill and die for the Islamic Republic.

Reported by William Drozdiak/ Amman

*Mourning the death in A.D. 680 of Shi'ite Leader Imam Husain, the son and successor of All, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad.

With reporting by William Drozdiak

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