The tale sounded really too bizarre to be believed. The U.S. conniving at arms shipments to Iran? Sending a secret mission to palaver with the mullahs? Trying to keep the whole thing from Congress and most of the U.S. Government? And all over Iran, of all places! The country that held Americans hostage for 444 days beginning in 1979, the land whose fanatical leader, Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini, has never ceased to denounce America as the “Great Satan,” the state widely suspected to this very day of fomenting terrorist attacks against Americans. Yet there is no question that it happened. Initially in the perhaps illusory hope of gaining influence with a post-Khomeini government in Iran, but eventually also as an inducement for Iranian help in winning freedom for U.S. hostages held by Muslim zealots in Lebanon, the Reagan Administration approved clandestine shipments of military equipment — ammunition, spare parts for tanks and jet fighters — to Iran through Israel. As long as the deep secret was kept — even from most of the U.S. intelligence community — the maneuver in one sense worked. Iran apparently leaned on Lebanese terrorists to set free three American hostages, the latest of whom, David Jacobsen, flew home to the U.S. last week for a Rose Garden meeting with Ronald Reagan. But once the broad outlines of the incredible story became known, the consequences were dire. The Administration appeared to have violated at least the spirit, and possibly the letter, of a long succession of U.S. laws that are intended to stop any arms transfers, direct < or indirect, to Iran. Washington looked to be sabotaging its own efforts to organize a worldwide embargo against arms sales to Iran, and hypocritically flouting its incessant admonitions to friends and allies not to negotiate with terrorists for the release of their captives. America's European allies, the recipients of much of that nagging, were outraged. Moreover, the U.S. was likely to forfeit the trust of moderate Arab nations that live in terror of Iranian-fomented Islamic fundamentalist revolutions and fear anything that might build up Tehran's military machine. Finally, the Administration seemed to have lost at least temporarily any chance of gaining the release of the missing six U.S. hostages in Lebanon, or of cultivating the Iranian politicians who might sooner or later take over from Khomeini. The 86-year-old Ayatullah is reported to be bedridden following a recent heart attack, but for at least as long as he lives, Iranian officials, including those who have been in quiet contact with the White House, cannot afford to be caught dealing any further with the Great Satan.
