In his office in downtown Tehran, Rafsanjani held a wide-ranging two-hour conversation with managing editor James R. Gaines and International managing editor Karsten Prager. It was the first interview he had given to a U.S. publication since he assumed the presidency in 1989. Excerpts:
Q. If President Clinton were sitting here, what would you say to him?
A. If I wanted to, I would advise him to try to serve the people of America and not to disturb the peace in other countries.
Q. In what way, if any, is Iran being disturbed?
A. Through interference and accusation.
Q. You appear to have made some attempts to improve relations -- through your efforts in Afghanistan, for instance, where Iran played a constructive role. But you haven't gotten much credit for it. Do you see other steps Iran could take to restore its credibility abroad?
A. What the U.S. wants is to deprive us of our credibility. It wants us to give up, to yield. I'll give you an example: the hostages in Lebanon. We received many messages from the U.S. to use our influence to get them released, and many promises were given. The pressure we exerted did get the hostages freed -- and because of that many of our friends are not happy with us. But as soon as the matter was settled, we discovered that the way the U.S. was addressing us had changed, had become tougher.
Q. What exactly did the U.S. promise?
A. Since we had no direct contact, I can make no claims, but we were told that the U.S. would release our frozen assets.
Q. Should the situation vis-a-vis the U.S. improve, will the descriptive "Great Satan" disappear?
A. If the U.S. does good, then it cannot be considered to be Satan. We are very much inclined to see a U.S. without hostility toward Iran. We will wait and see how the U.S. proceeds.
Q. What would you like Washington to do?
A. Release our assets unconditionally -- that would be a good sign. Until then we cannot understand the situation except in terms of animosity.
Q. The U.S. State Department has labeled Iran the most dangerous sponsor of terrorism in 1992.
A. This label is more appropriate for the U.S. government. We must look at examples and see who supports terrorism. It is not difficult to make claims; you have to give examples.
Q. You would not deny that Hizballah ((Lebanon's Iran-backed Party of God)) has committed violent acts?
A. Can it be that you do not know how many bombs have been exploded in Iran by the terrorist Mujahedin group ((an antigovernment faction))? Who hijacked our planes? Who blew up our government headquarters, assassinated our President and Premier, bombed the Islamic Republican Party's headquarters, resulting in the deaths of 72 high officials? Yet these same terrorists are close to the White House and enjoy U.S. congressional endorsement. If Iran had shot down an American airliner, as the U.S. shot down an Iranian Airbus in the Persian Gulf, what would the U.S. do? Therefore, shouldn't we more appropriately accuse the U.S. of terrorism?
Q. The U.S. explained that the Airbus incident was an accident, a mistake.