Honorable Deal--or Ransom?

By GEORGE J. CHURCH

The debate begins over the agreement with Iran

The bells had scarcely finished pealing out the nation's joy over the hostages' release before the debate broke out on a tormenting question: Was the agreement that freed the captives a victory for peaceful, persistent diplomacy, or a humiliating payment of ransom that may encourage further terrorism against diplomats--or a little bit of both? Though the argument was somewhat muted last week by the euphoria surrounding the return of the hostages, it will intensify as outrage over the Iranian militants' harsh treatment of their captives spreads among Americans.

Supporters of the agreement contend, in the words of George Ball, former Under Secretary of State, that "all we did was give them back what they have always owned" --money on deposit in U.S. banks or then" foreign branches. Not all, or even most, of the money, either. Jimmy Carter claimed that of the nearly $12 billion in Iranian assets that he froze shortly after the hostages were seized, only $2.8 billion has been returned to the Tehran government free and clear. Most of the rest either was immediately returned to American banks to repay loans to Iran or will be tied up in escrow accounts until claims against Iran by U.S. companies and individuals are finally settled by an international arbitration commission.

Moreover, says Richard Bulliet, acting director of the Middle East Institute at Columbia University: "If you compare the guidelines for a settlement that the U.S. offered very early on with the conditions that the Iranians presented, you find very little change on the U.S. part, and continual retrenchment on the part of Iran." The Iranians, for example, dropped their early insistence that the U.S. apologize for "crimes" against Iran and backed off from a demand that the U.S. deposit $24 billion in escrow in Algiers, an amount that Iranian officials reckoned equaled the total of the country's frozen assets and the late Shah's wealth. According to Richard Falk, a foreign policy expert at Princeton University: "I think that the settlement is being played too much as a deal. It was more a way to restore aspects of the status quo before the hostages were taken."

Carter's allies thus find the agreement not only consistent with national honor but something of a victory for patient diplomacy. That is also the view of some friendly foreign governments. British Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington called the arrangement "a right move." West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, who scorned Carter's approach to many other foreign policy issues, called the hostage release "a personal triumph for former President Carter and a triumph for the forbearance, patience, discipline and fortitude of the American people." Said Rudolf Wildenmann, a political scientist at the University of Mannheim: "There was no other decent solution. The U.S. has not lost face."

But a vociferous group of critics contends that by turning over any cash at all to the Iranians, the U.S. is paying ransom to the kidnapers and setting a potentially disastrous precedent. Says Michael Ledeen, editor of the Washington Quarterly: "I don't think we should reward criminals with money." Adds Edward Luttwak, a foreign policy expert at Georgetown University: "By saving 52 lives, we sacrificed diplomats all over a world riddled with half-crazy governments." This view is also heard abroad, though mostly in nongovernmental circles. The Swiss newspaper Journal de Geneve asserts that the agreement "suggests to the entire world that it is possible to change the direction of U.S. policy through acts of terrorism and blackmail." French Political Commentator Edouard Sablier observes: "Of course it was ransom. By definition, ransom is anything that has to be paid to secure the release of a captured person." The critics attack some specific parts of the agreement, notably the provision that Americans with claims against Iran cannot sue in U.S. courts and be compensated from Iran's formerly frozen assets; instead, they will have to present their claims to the arbitration commission. The hostages themselves are barred from filing suits against Iran. If they are to be compensated financially for their sufferings, the payments apparently will have to be made by Washington with American tax dollars. Says Brent Scowcroft, who was once National Security Adviser to President Ford: "Cutting off the right to sue is paying them off. That's extortion." Some critics also assail the U.S. commitment to help Iran find and recover assets of the late Shah and his family, vague and probably unenforceable as that commitment may be. Asks the Wall Street Journal: "Do we really want finally to capitulate to the Ayatullah's lust for vengeance?"

Several opponents of the agreement concede that it is probably the best that could have been negotiated. Says Joseph Sisco, former Assistant Secretary of State: "If you start with the assumption that we have already been humiliated, on the whole our negotiators did the best job possible." The fundamental argument of Sisco and other critics is that the U.S. should never have bargained with Iran at all. Says Luttwak: "What's wrong with this deal is precisely that there was a deal. There is a much deeper principle involved: you should not negotiate with terrorists. When you bargain, you violate a principle that is more than 2,000 years old"--the sanctity of diplomats.

But if bargaining would have been ruled out, what was the alternative? James Schlesinger, who held a variety of Cabinet-level posts under Presidents Nixon, Ford and Carter, has a blunt answer: "We should have sent forces into the area and delivered an ultimatum. If the Iranians did not respond, we should have punished them." The counterarguments to that are obvious: the use of force might have resulted in the death of the hostages, it might well have led to a superpower confrontation with the Soviet Union, it might have pushed Iran into the Soviet sphere and--most troublesome of all--the U.S. probably could not have brought enough sustained military force to bear in the region to get the job done.

Even Schlesinger counsels that the Reagan Administration keep the agreement. Says he: "I would be careful about reneging on the commitment of a U.S. President. It sets a bad precedent." The controversy will rage on as the echoes of rejoicing at the hostages' release die away. The probable verdict: the deal was better done than not done. --By George J. Church.

Reported by Robert Geline/New York and Evan Thomas/Washington

With reporting by Robert Geline, Evan Thomas

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