The Foreign Service Journal, January 2006

J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 6 2 0 0 5 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 15 T wenty-five years ago, just before midnight on Jan. 20, 1981, I stood on the last step of the ramp leading into an Algerian air- liner sitting on the tarmac of Tehran’s Mehrabad Airport. I was among the last of the 52 American hostages being pushed, shoved and verbally abused by Iranian hostage-takers getting in their last licks. Then the Swiss ambassador, sitting just inside the door of that air- craft, warmly welcomed us as he very carefully recorded our arrival into his government’s temporary custody. Safely on board, the doors of that beautiful airplane closed, and we began our flight to freedom — stop- ping briefly for refueling in Athens, and then being formally welcomed by Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher and the Algerian foreign minister in the VIP lounge of the air- port in Algiers. There, with a formal exchange of documents, Christopher officially took us into American cus- tody and then sent us off in two U.S. Air Force medical evacuation aircraft bound for the USAF hospital at Wiesbaden, West Germany, and three days of the warmest welcome and hos- pitality we had ever known. That was only the beginning of our Flight to Freedom. Then came a refu- eling stop and more warmth from the Irish prime minister and all of his Cabinet at Shannon Airport; two days and three nights as guests of the Corps of Cadets at West Point — their roar- ing welcome in their mess hall the first night virtually lifting its roof — and then a historic welcome on the South Lawn of the White House by newly- elected President Ronald Reagan and everyone who was anyone in the city of Washington. The media described our welcome as unprecedented; for the 52 of us, it was unforgettable. A Day Yet to Dawn Standing there on top of the ramp of that Algerian airliner, I said to the man who was probably the senior hostage-taker that I looked forward to the day when his country and mine could again have a normal diplomatic relationship. But 25 years later, there still is no such relationship—nor have our two governments, except for rare instances in the context of the ouster of the Taliban regime in Kabul, had a formal exchange of any kind. That is a very long stretch of recent diplomatic history — more time than passed before the United States and the Soviet Union established diplomatic relations, and longer than it took Washington to open a liaison office in Beijing. In fact, it is a time span exceeded only by the current breaches in relations with North Korea and Cuba. Even Track II diplomacy — private people-to-people exchanges —between the United States and Iran suffers from stringent visa restrictions. Traumatic as the emotional fallout of the hostage crisis was for Americans, should it be allowed to make even preliminary moves toward better relations unthinkable a quarter- century later? Admittedly, few single instances of danger involving Ameri- can citizens abroad ever commanded the national stage so totally as did the hostage crisis in its time. Ever since then, the image of Iran among most Americans has remained highly nega- tive, aggravated by its identification as a continuing state sponsor of terror- ism, by its pursuit of nuclear weapons technology and, more recently, by concern that Iranian influence in Iraq is growing and poses a threat to U.S. objectives in that country. In addition, particularly on Capitol Hill, opinion has long seen Iran as act- ing deliberately to frustrate the Israeli- Palestinian peace process by its sup- port for Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas on the West Bank. Recent anti-Israeli speeches by Iran’s new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have further soured American public perceptions of Tehran. On the other side, there were fleet- ing glimmers of Iranian interest in dia- logue with the United States during the Clinton administration, including former President Mohammad Khata- mi’s occasional references to a possible “dialogue among civilizations.” But the Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatol- lah Khamanei, continues to denounce America as a “world-devouring impe- rialist” and a government that has never been prepared to accept the Islamic Revolution. As evidence, the regime cites Washington’s consistent refusal to lift its sanctions against Iran and, especially, its hold on frozen Iranian assets alleged by the Iranians to total tens of billions of dollars. There can be no dialogue, Iranian hardliners insist, while sweeping sanc- tions remain in place. Iran is also highly suspicious of the American mil- itary presence in the region, with 25 Years Later, Time for Dialogue with Iran B Y B RUCE L AINGEN S PEAKING O UT