The Twilight War: The Secret History of America's Thirty-Year Conflict With Iran

by David Crist

  The following year, Imad Mugniyah orchestrated another effort to get the seventeen Dawa Party members released from Kuwait. This time, Iran showed less enthusiasm for its ally’s actions. On April 5, eight hijackers seized Kuwait Airways Flight 422 as it neared Kuwait City on a flight from Bangkok. They took control of the Boeing 747 and forced the plane down in Iran. An embarrassed Iranian government ordered them to leave and threatened to send in commandos to storm the plane. The jet then headed for Beirut, where Iranian pressure resulted in the denial of landing rights. So the aircraft set down in Cyprus. When Kuwait refused to release the captives, the hijackers executed two passengers. When the jumbo jet took off for its next destination, Algeria, the hijackers told the tower that they had “donned death shrouds and renamed the jetliner the ‘Plane of the Great Martyrs.’”

  On takeoff from Cyprus, when the air traffic controller referred to the jet as “Kuwait 422,” a hijacker snapped back, “No! Plane of Martyrs!” The controller responded, “Sorry, Plane of Martyrs.”5 After sixteen days, with the assistance of the Iranian government, the hijackers surrendered.

  While both Rafsanjani and Bush wanted to end the hostage quandary, without diplomatic relations the two sides were forced like schoolchildren to pass messages back and forth via intermediaries. The State Department’s assistant secretary for Near Eastern affairs, John Kelly, regularly received messages from Tehran, or those reporting to speak for its government. The Iranians wanted to meet with an American emissary anywhere in Europe, as long as the meeting remained a secret. His standard reply to these feelers: “We would be happy to, but not in the shadows.”6 Iran consistently refused. Having been burned by the Iranian arms sales, Rafsanjani wanted to retain plausible deniability for domestic reasons. He did not want to be viewed as the one needing to talk with the Great Satan.

  Washington continued to reach out to Iran. One of the Iranian president’s close aides was an American-educated engineer who served as the editor for the Tehran Times, Hossein Mousavian. As he heard visiting dignitaries reciting a similar message from the Americans, he started keeping a log of each communication. He noted over forty messages to the Iranian president via foreign ministers and heads of state, all asking for Iran’s assistance in releasing those held in Lebanon. In every case they came with the same refrain: it’s time the two countries move forward; “goodwill leads to goodwill.”7

  The Bush administration approached the United Nations to broker the release of the hostages in Lebanon. President Bush called Secretary General de Cuéllar and asked if he could meet with National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft. De Cuéllar agreed, and the two men met at a home in the Hamptons on Long Island. Scowcroft passed along a message from Bush: the president was prepared to take a series of reciprocal actions to ease tensions and free the hostages. The basis of this was the president’s inaugural address and the notion of goodwill meeting with goodwill. Scowcroft asked de Cuéllar to deliver the message directly to Rafsanjani.

  The UN secretary general tasked a trusted aide to work the discussions between the Americans and the Iranians. Italian diplomat Giandomenico Picco served as a special envoy to de Cuéllar and was no stranger in Tehran. He’d first arrived there in 1983, and over the years the tall, sophisticated public servant had earned the respect of Iranian leaders, especially Rafsanjani. He played a key role in negotiating the final agreement on the cease-fire that finally ended the slaughter of the Iran-Iraq War. He had also had some experience in working the hostage issue, as two UN employees were among those held in Beirut.

  On August 17, 1989, Rafsanjani met with the Pakistani foreign minister. In response to the American mantra, Rafsanjani agreed to work to obtain the release of the hostages in exchange for some demonstration by the United States that it accepted the Islamic Republic. Rafsanjani was keen to put the war behind him. Iran needed Western investment to rebuild its shattered economy. The Lebanese hostages had outlived their utility.

  On August 25, Picco arrived in Tehran for his first meeting with President Rafsanjani. Javad Zarif, a young Iranian diplomat destined to play a larger role in talks with the Americans, drove him to the presidential palace. Picco met the Iranian president in his office, a room Picco described as one of “overpowering whiteness, accentuated by the afternoon light flooding the room through huge windows.”8 As Zarif translated, the UN envoy described the sincerity of President Bush’s offer of “goodwill begets goodwill.” However, in light of Iran-Contra, Bush could participate only in a tit-for-tat exchange. If Rafsanjani secured the hostages’ release, the American president would reciprocate in kind.

  Rafsanjani flashed with anger. He wanted action, not words, from the Americans. Regarding those holding the hostages, the Iranian president replied, “These people are not easy to find. They do not have an address.” Israel had just seized a prominent sheik in Lebanon, and Hezbollah wanted him back before releasing any Westerners.9 It would be a long and difficult task, Picco thought.

  In November 1989, President Bush took a few steps to demonstrate his sincerity. The president disposed of an escrow account held by the Bank of England from the 1981 Algiers Accords to settle claims stemming from the hostage crisis. This returned $567 million to Iran. President Bush allowed an Iranian interests section in the Pakistani embassy in Washington. While the U.S. government limited its size to a staff of only forty-five and its function to travel services, it marked a major milestone. Thousands of Iranians living in the United States could now apply for a visa to travel back to the homeland. Last, following the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland, Bush refused to act against Iran when early press reports and members of Congress such as Benjamin Gilman raised suspicions of Iranian culpability. Evidence would later point to Moammar Gaddafi as the culprit.10

  However, Bush continued intelligence sharing with Iraq. As emerged during the 1991 confirmation hearing for Robert Gates as CIA director, the president had authorized limited intelligence passed to Iraq relating to Iranian military dispositions. Just three months before the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, with CENTCOM commander General Schwarzkopf already planning for a possible conflict with Iraq, the CIA gave Iraq information out of concern that ending the intelligence exchange might close off access to the Iraqi military.11 Iran knew of this continued intelligence sharing through a double agent in the Iraqi intelligence service. It only fueled suspicion among hard-liners in Iran over America’s true intentions with respect to the Islamic Republic.

  Iran soon became a sideshow for the United States in the Persian Gulf. At two a.m. on August 2, 1990, Captain (later vice admiral) Kevin Cosgriff’s frigate had just dropped off a Kuwaiti tanker as part of the Earnest Will convoy missions that continued out of inertia more than necessity. Thin, intelligent, and businesslike, he had several deployments in the Gulf under his belt. But that night would be like no other. His radar and radio lit up with images of war. Waves of Iraqi aircraft bombed Kuwait. Helicopters landed Iraqi special forces along the coast, while columns of Iraqi tanks poured into the tiny emirate. As the Kuwaiti air force and navy scrambled to get out of the way, Cosgriff radioed back to the Middle East Force asking for instructions. “Wait out,” came the reply.

  “That was not what I wanted to hear when a war is breaking out all around me,” Cosgriff said. The American ship made its way south away from Kuwait, with a trail of tankers following in Cosgriff’s wake looking for protection. It would be the last convoy operation of Earnest Will.12 Operations Desert Shield and, soon thereafter, Desert Storm were about to begin.

  During the eight-month crisis, Iran and the United States maintained an uneasy understanding. Iran viewed this new Middle East crisis as both an opportunity and a challenge. Rafsanjani rejected a dubious offer by Saddam Hussein to support Iraq in exchange for major concessions after the war. Instead, he supported the UN sanctions against Iraq. Leaders in Tehran united behind removing Saddam Hussein, but with some unease as the prospect of a prolonged American military presence would threaten their long-term go
al of regional dominance.

  The United States simply wanted Iran to accept the United Nations resolutions and stay out of the way. No one in the Bush administration expected the war would lead to a breakthrough. “Our policy that normal relations can be reestablished only after Iran helps obtain the release of American hostages without bargaining or blackmail remains valid,” stated a Deputies Committee meeting paper penned by Robert Gates.13

  During the Gulf War, the United States maintained regular, indirect contact with Iran through Swiss intermediaries. The U.S. government passed as many as three démarches a week to Iran during the 1990–1991 Gulf crisis. This included information about U.S. deployments to Saudi Arabia and the buildup of naval forces in the Gulf to avoid raising alarm in Tehran about American intentions. The United States asked Iran not to take action should American aircraft stray into Iran’s airspace. While Iran did not reply, it tacitly agreed: in the few instances when a coalition jet strayed into Iranian airspace, the Iranian military took no action. Just before the hundred-hour ground war began, Iran relayed through the Swiss that an American helicopter had attacked several Iranian patrol boats, chasing them up into the mouth of a river. But Iran’s protest was muted. It did little more than demand “prevention of such provocative acts” while reassuring the United States of Iran’s neutrality.14 The report proved unfounded.

  On several occasions, the State Department received information that an American citizen trapped in Kuwait planned to flee to Iran. The United States relayed this to Tehran, and the Islamic Republic cooperated in safeguarding the American’s passage to freedom.15

  The war did, however, help Picco and the efforts to free the hostages. The Iraqi invasion set free the “Dawa Seventeen” in Kuwait and all had quickly made their way into Iran. Held since their bombing rampage in 1983, their release had been a major fixation by Hezbollah in Lebanon. In April 1991, Picco pressed again to secure the hostages. He traveled to Damascus, where he met with the Iranian ambassador and Syrian military officers before flying on to Beirut. Thirty minutes after arriving, he received a call from the Iranian embassy confirming that he had a meeting with Sheik Fadlallah at his home in south Beirut. Traveling alone at night, a nervous Picco met the Lebanese spiritual leader, who greeted him with a warm smile. During the ensuing discussions, the Lebanese threw his support behind the UN effort to free the hostages. While not a decision maker within Hezbollah, Fadlallah agreed to work with Picco in securing the release of all hostages held in Lebanon and Israel.

  On August 10, 1991, Picco found himself back in Beirut to meet with the hostage takers. Iran had arranged the meeting, but when Picco met with the Iranian ambassador at his embassy, the UN representative asked if the ambassador was going to accompany him. “Oh, no, Mr. Picco. I don’t know these people. It’s going to be between you and them!”16

  At the instruction of the Iranians, Picco left the embassy and started walking down the street. All was quiet, with only one other person on the sidewalk. After ten minutes of this unnerving stroll, a Mercedes drove up next to him and an occupant pulled him into the backseat. The abductors drove a now hooded Picco around, eventually stopping at a building in south Beirut. They ushered him into a room with all the walls covered in white sheets. Two masked men came in to greet him. After verifying that Picco came at the behest of the UN secretary general, the two were joined by a third masked man. He appeared more confident and had a commanding presence, and introduced himself as Abdullah. He was likely Imad Mugniyah.

  The mood lightened and they got down to business discussing the various hostages and how to arrange a swap of everyone held in the region. At the end of the conversation, the captors offered to let Picco see one of the hostages. Picco insisted on taking one with him as a sign of good faith. After some back-and-forth haggling, they produced Edward Tracy, an American who had traveled to Lebanon to sell Bibles. After five years in captivity, Tracy’s sanity had become questionable. He could not remember his name and claimed that he ate cordon bleu three times a day.

  But this small step started a chain that eventually led to the release of all the Western hostages. Over the next months, Picco flew from New York to Cyprus, Beirut, and Damascus, meeting repeatedly with Zarif and Scowcroft to secure all the hostages’ freedom. Iran threw the weight of its diplomatic effort behind the talks. But as Picco understood, the real broker was the masked Abdullah. After an intricate series of releases of prisoners in Israel and Lebanon, on December 4, 1991, Picco completed his mission. The reporter Terry Anderson was the last American hostage freed, and later in the month Hezbollah turned over the bodies of CIA station chief William Buckley and Colonel Richard Higgins.17

  With Rafsanjani having upheld his end of the unwritten bargain, he now wanted reciprocity. But when it came time for the United States to respond with its own goodwill gesture, the Bush administration reneged.

  On the morning of April 7, 1992, Picco flew down to Washington to meet with Scowcroft. The national security adviser had shown signs of backpedaling on his earlier commitments, but now with Picco in his office, Scowcroft came to the point quickly: “There will be no goodwill to beget goodwill.” He then accused Iran of continuing to carry out terrorism, most recently the bombing in March of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, which Iran had carried out in response to the Israeli killing of the Hezbollah leader. Scowcroft added to the litany of Iranian offenses the brutal murder of Higgins and the killing in August 1991 of former Iranian prime minister Shapour Bakhtiar by three Iranian agents who’d entered his house in Paris and stabbed him and an assistant with a kitchen knife.18 Scowcroft had been leery of Iranian regional aspirations. Keeping an Iraqi balance against Iran had been an important rationale in his mind for not removing Saddam Hussein during Desert Storm.19 Iranian support for the spontaneous Shia uprising at the end of the war only reinforced his concerns about expanding Iranian influence. After the war, Bush and Scowcroft deliberately excluded Iran from the regional peace conference in Madrid, a slight that Rafsanjani never forgot. Now, with all the hostages out, Scowcroft felt no need to honor the American side of the deal. It was a bitter blow of duplicity to the Iranian president.

  Picco had the unfortunate task of breaking the news to Rafsanjani. Meeting in the president’s white-decorated office, Picco looked into his eyes and said he had come with news of broken promises. No goodwill gesture would be forthcoming from the Americans.

  Rafsanjani’s eyes narrowed. “We have taken many political risks in our cooperation with you. Not everybody was in favor of such cooperation. You understand, Mr. Picco, that you are putting me in a very difficult position.” The Iranian president then added, “I think it is best if you leave Tehran very, very quickly. The news of what you told me will travel fast to other quarters, and they may decide not to let you go.”20

  Undaunted, Rafsanjani tried another initiative through the Germans. Beginning in 1990, Iran’s ambassador to Germany, Hossein Mousavian, passed to Washington a list of four issues that divided the two nations: terrorism, the Middle East peace process, weapons of mass destruction, and human rights. He relayed that Rafsanjani was prepared to establish a joint working group to resolve these issues as a means to pave the way for a rapprochement. The Germans came back to the Iranian ambassador with the message that the Americans were not interested in the proposal.

  Rafsanjani never forgave the Americans. He could overcome American support for Saddam Hussein as a by-product of war. But he had hoped to bring about change in the postwar world. “It was the first strategic mistake by the United States after the war,” said Hossein Mousavian. Hard-liners in Tehran like Mohsen Rezai seized on the American rebuff as proof that the United States was not serious about better relations. The United States needed a new enemy after the Cold War, he argued, to justify its imperialistic ambitions. Iran served that purpose.21

  Years later, Richard Haass, who worked with Scowcroft on Iranian policy, met the Iranian foreign minister at a conference. When the Iranian heard his name, he
replied, “Ah, yes. Mr. Goodwill Begets Goodwill.”22

  In 1993, a new political wind blew into Washington. Unlike the man he’d defeated for the presidency, William Jefferson Clinton arrived in the White House with no foreign policy experience. Perpetually late for any occasion, Clinton was a career politician—both glib and charismatic. He possessed an uncanny ability to remember people’s faces—even those he had met briefly months earlier on the campaign trail—that charmed many prospective supporters along his way to the highest office in the land. A quick study, he impressed many senior officers, even those who disagreed with his policies. The marine commandant during Clinton’s second term, General Charles Krulak, a born-again Christian and a staunch Republican, respected President Clinton both for his willingness to ask for advice and his quick grasp of the complexities of modern military operations.

  Clinton shared a common trait with other politicians who have occupied the Oval Office: a conviction in his own power of persuasion to solve foreign policy challenges. Clinton believed that he could sit down with any leader, no matter how disreputable, and resolve disagreements. In an interview with New York Times reporters a week before his inauguration, Clinton responded to a question about future relations with Saddam Hussein. “I think that if he were sitting here on the couch I would further the change in his behavior,” he said, later adding, “I always tell everybody, ‘I’m a Baptist; I believe in deathbed conversions.’ If he wants a different relationship with the United States and with the United Nations, all he has to do is change his behavior.”23

  Clinton’s Middle East agenda did not center on either Iran or Iraq. Iran remained devastated from its eight-year war with Iraq. Desert Storm had neutered the Iraqi dictator, and although still an irritant to the sole remaining superpower, he posed no threat to his neighbors. The U.S. military maintained tens of thousands of troops in the Persian Gulf region, keeping both countries in check and safeguarding Pax Americana.