The Gulf Showdown on Embassy Row

By John Greenwald

In Paris, just across the Seine River from the Eiffel Tower, a beefed-up force of 200 police surrounded the ornate Iranian embassy, floodlighting the building at night to prevent the departure of its 45 occupants. French security agents even checked nearby sewers to make sure no one left the building clandestinely. In Tehran, Interior Minister Ali Akbar Mohtashami announced that the French embassy had been cordoned off and that some of its officials would be arrested for spying. His threat quickly raised fears that the French diplomats might be seized in an ugly replay of the U.S. embassy hostage nightmare of 1979-81. Warned Christian Bourguet, a French lawyer who helps represent the Iranian government in Paris: "The risk now is that the crowds in Iran might do something like what happened to the Americans. That is to say, a veritable invasion of the embassy."

The "war of the embassies" between France and Iran last week resulted in a bitter cutoff of diplomatic relations between the two countries and a heightened confrontation that threatened even more serious hostilities. France broke off relations first, after rejecting an Iranian demand that it give up attempts to question a 34-year-old Iranian who had taken refuge in the Paris embassy about a series of terrorist attacks. Tehran quickly followed suit, and within hours Western news agencies in Beirut received warnings that two French hostages being held by pro-Iranian Islamic terrorists would be killed. The threats came from callers who claimed to speak for the kidnapers.

On Saturday, Mohtashami made his espionage charges, claiming that the French diplomats had "acted as a connecting bridge to help counterrevolutionaries escape abroad and also to help link splinter groups inside Iran." French officials accused Iran of making the spying allegations in order to create a situation parallel to the standoff in Paris. They announced that if Tehran approves, Italy will represent France in Iran, where nearly 300 French nationals still reside, in addition to the embassy personnel. The first job for the Italians would be to try to defuse the crisis by negotiating the mutual repatriation of the French and Iranian delegations. French and Iranian diplomats held preliminary talks on Saturday but reached no final plan.

The embassy battles began over Wahid Gordji, an interpreter and the son of a doctor who tended the Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini during a Paris stay in the late 1970s. French officials sought to question Gordji about bombings that killed eleven people and injured 161 others in Paris last year. Though Gordji has not been charged, he has reportedly been linked by police to a Lebanese who has been charged with complicity in the bombings. French authorities suspect that Gordji may be a leader of an Iranian intelligence network. Police surrounded the 19th century sandstone embassy after concluding that Gordji, who is not protected by diplomatic immunity, was hiding there. Iran brazenly corroborated the hunch: Gordji served as translator at an embassy press conference called to denounce the siege.

The U.S., which has not had diplomatic relations with Iran since 1980, expressed support for France's firm stance. The Reagan Administration was engaged in its own war of words with Tehran. Interior Minister Mohtashami vowed retaliation if the U.S. proceeded this week with its plans to reflag Kuwaiti tankers and use American warships to protect the vessels in the Persian Gulf. Said Mohtashami: "Islamic Revolutionary Guards will turn the Persian Gulf into a graveyard for the Americans." According to some reports, Iran has mobilized seaborne suicide squads, who plan to ram U.S. ships with vessels that have been turned into floating bombs.

In Washington, Senate opponents of the Administration's reflagging plans failed to muster enough votes to call for a 90-day delay in the operation. In the House, tempers flared over a remark by Congressman Les Aspin that the first U.S.-escorted convoy would sail July 22. Aspin, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, revealed the date after attending an Administration briefing. Republican Minority Leader Robert Michel accused Democrat Aspin of "unforgivable" behavior, but Aspin pointed out, correctly, that Republican Senator Robert Dole had also disclosed the date to reporters.

Nonetheless, White House officials hinted that the inaugural convoy now might begin a day or two after July 22. Though the operation has already been delayed for seven weeks, the Kuwaiti tankers are still undergoing a final U.S. Coast Guard inspection at several undisclosed foreign ports. According to congressional sources, the first reflagged Kuwaiti ship, accompanied initially by the carrier U.S.S. Constellation and then by naval warships, will steam from the United Arab Emirates port of Khor Fakkan on the Indian Ocean to the Kuwaiti port of Mina al Ahmadi, some 675 miles away. After refueling and loading up with oil, the vessel will return to Khor Fakkan. The trip will take about five days; three more convoys are planned for August. No more than five of the eleven reflagged ships will be escorted.

Administration officials voiced confidence that the escort is more likely to deter attacks than provoke clashes. They cautioned, however, that the danger of terrorist strikes against U.S. embassies and foreign installations may increase. The spiraling tensions between Paris and Tehran last week and the doubts expressed on Capitol Hill underscored both the dangers of involvement in the gulf and the volatility of Iran's leaders. Even Dole's support for the reflagging sounded wistful. "It's a done deal," he said. "I may not think it's the best tactic, but it's done. The last thing we do now is turn it around."

With reporting by David S. Jackson/Cairo and Adam Zagorin/Paris