Iran Offers to Aid Hostages if U.S. Agrees to Prod Israel : Bush Sees Some ‘Hope’ in Proposal

Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani told the United States today that he is ready to help free hostages in Lebanon but that Washington should abandon military solutions and pressure Israel to free a kidnaped Muslim cleric.

“I address the White House: There is a solution for Lebanon, a solution for freeing the hostages,” Rafsanjani said at a mass prayer meeting in Tehran.

“Take a sensible attitude, and we will help solve the problems there so that people of the region may live in peace and friendship.”

President Bush, asked about Rafsanjani’s proposal, told reporters in Washington: “When you see a statement that offers hope about the return of our hostages, I want to explore it to the fullest.”

Rafsanjani, in his first foreign policy remarks since taking office Thursday, said the United States is wrong to seek military solutions for the hostage crisis in Lebanon.

“You cannot solve anything by bullying and arrogant approaches,” he said in a sermon broadcast on Tehran Radio.

The pro-Iranian Revolutionary Justice Organization suspended a death threat against American hostage Joseph J. Cicippio, 59, on Thursday but said the reprieve would last only several days.

U.S. Appeals to Iran

The United States had pressed Iran to use its influence with Shiite Muslim groups in Lebanon to prevent the killing of Western hostages after the reported hanging Monday of Marine Lt. Col. William R. Higgins, 44.

Rafsanjani said that if the United States wants to end the crisis, it could pressure Israel to free the Muslim cleric it kidnaped from south Lebanon a week ago.

The captors of both Higgins and Cicippio have demanded freedom for Sheik Abdel Karim Obeid, a leader of the pro-Iranian Hezbollah movement.

“It will be received well in the world if you demand that a criminal (Israel) give up its crime,” Rafsanjani said.

Rafsanjani also questioned whether U.S. military action in Lebanon could be effective.

“How stupid you are. . . . You have been to Lebanon once, and you saw how the Lebanese kicked you out,” he said, referring to the 1983 killing of 241 U.S. Marines by a truck bomb in Beirut.

Christian Army commander Michel Aoun, Israel and Iraqi Baathists “are raining shells on Lebanon. What can your fleet do to stop that? Is there any place in Lebanon not hit by a shell already?” he asked.

Warships on Alert

U.S. warships are on the alert near Lebanon and Iran.

Rafsanjani heaped scorn on the U.S. military buildup, saying Washington is backing the wrong side in what he termed a clear-cut case of Israeli intransigence.

“The clear point is that a government (Israel) has formally admitted that it has committed a crime,” he said.

He said Iran did not know Higgins, who was serving as a U.N. peacekeeping officer when he was captured in February last year, and he could be innocent although his captors described him as a spy.

“We don’t know who (Higgins’ captors) are, or whether they are good people or not. But we know that the people of Lebanon are oppressed and they cannot be condemned for no reason,” Rafsanjani said.