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Hostage Gambit

[New York Post] Amir Taheri - The British sailors would not have been captured without Tehran's approval at the highest level. Ever since it erupted on the scene, the Khomeinist revolution has always accompanied a hardening of its position by seizing hostages. In November 1979, just eight months after seizing power, the Khomeinist regime endorsed the seizure of American diplomats as hostages in Tehran. During the following quarter-century, the Islamic Republic was involved in seizing more than 1,000 hostages from more than 30 countries in Iran or through its Hizbullah agents in Lebanon. These included a French ambassador to Tehran, Guy Georgy, two German bankers, and eight American and French journalists - plus dozens of businessmen, priests and tourists from countries such as South Korea and Italy. Right now the Islamic Republic is holding a German hostage. Western apologists for the Khomeinist regime have already started blaming the U.S. for having made the mullahs nervous. The argument of the apologists is: Don't do anything that makes the mullahs unhappy, or else they will do more mischief. The truth, however, is that making the mullahs nervous may be the only way of persuading them to end their defiance of the UN and stop trying to export Khomeinism to neighboring countries.
2007-03-28 01:00:00
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