It’s Best to Say: The Deal Is ‘No Deals’ : President Bush Is Playing His Hostage Hand Just About Right

A pale and malnourished Robert Polhill had barely ended his 1,183 days as a captive of Lebanese Shiite militants before word came that those who had a hand in his release--including Iran and Syria--now expect some tangible gesture of U.S. reciprocity in exchange for what Polhill’s kidnapers had the effrontery to call their “humanitarian” action.

Reciprocity? For what? For finally taking the minimally decent step of freeing one of eight innocent Americans from prolonged, cruel and utterly inexcusable imprisonment? By this twisted standard of obligation, a mugger who leaves his bloodied victim with bus fare to the hospital has a moral right to demand gratitude for his kindness.

President Bush put it bluntly and correctly on Sunday when news came that Polhill had been let go: The United States won’t trade for hostages, period. It detracts nothing from this principled stance to note that it is further buttressed by anxious political memories of the fiasco the Reagan Administration committed when it naively tried to swap arms to Iran for hostages from Lebanon.

“No deals” should remain the U.S. position, without apology. The White House insisted again yesterday that all American hostages must be released unconditionally, the clear message being that, until this happens, Iran can expect no real improvement in its relations with the United States. Already, some voices are being heard decrying the inflexibility of that position, arguing as they have before that “moderate” forces in Tehran--remember them?--need the kind of support and encouragement that only a visible U.S. payoff can provide. This siren song once before lured American policy onto the shoals of international political humiliation. Let’s hope the dark and bitter lesson that there can be no concessions to the sponsors of terrorism has been fully absorbed.

In fact, there’s little if anything the United States can do to influence factional power struggles in Iran. Terry Anderson, who has been held prisoner for more than five years, and the other six American hostages will be returned to freedom when the Tehran regime decides to order or force its ideological allies and agents in Lebanon to let them go, after calculating that Iran’s national interests require nothing less. At this point, despite much speculation, there’s no clear evidence that such a calculation has in fact been made.

In time, it will have to be. For it should be clear by now, even to the most fanatical and obtuse of Shiite militants, that the hostages in Lebanon have long since lost whatever extortion value they were once believed to have. Tehran, increasingly desperate for Western help to rebuild its war-shattered economy, can only come to see that the hostages have become not just a depleted asset but an impediment to improving Iran’s national fortunes. Doling out hostages one at a time, over long intervals, won’t remove that impediment. The Bush Administration seems determined to avoid sending any signal that would suggest otherwise. It’s doing the right thing, and in the right way.