Terrorism and Hostage Taking: Lessons from the Iranian Crisis
![handle is hein.journals/rutlj13 and id is 549 raw text is: TERRORISM AND HOSTAGE TAKING:
LESSONS FROM THE IRANIAN CRISIS
Abraham H. Miller*
I. INTRODUCTION
Terrorism is the weapon of those with meager political resources.'
Possessing neither large numbers of active supporters nor broad
ideological appeals, terrorists must create the illusion of strength to com-
pensate for the reality of weakness For terrorists, the dramatic episode
is the mechanism which transforms political impotency into the
appearance of political power.' The staging of the terrorist episode is a
major strategic consideration. An effective terrorist leader is concerned
with the same motifs as a good director: how to create powerful,
attention-getting drama.
* Professor of Political Science, University of Cincinnati; B.A. 1962,
University of Illinois; M.A. 1964, University of Michigan; Ph.D. 1968, University of
Michigan.
1. See generally W. LAQUEUR, TERRORISM 217-18 (1977); A. MILLER, TER-
RORISM AND HOSTAGE NEGOTIATIONS 1-2 (1981); Laqueur, The Continuing Failure
of Terrorism, HARPERS, Nov. 1976, at 69-74.
2. Abane Ramdane, an Algerian resistance leader, is the modern pro-
genitor of the use of the media to create the appearance of political strength. Ram-
dane adopted this strategy when he noticed that the killing of scores of Frenchmen
in the desert went unnoticed, but the killing of one Frenchman in a busy street of
Algiers received exposure in the international media. See R. GAUCHER, THE TER-
RORISTS 229-30 (1968). The legacy of Abane Ramdane was bequeathed to Dr.
George Habash, head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Habash,
the father of airplane hijacking for political exposure, has argued that the killing of
a single Jew and the ensuing publicity from the act is more important than the kill-
ing of scores of Jews on the battlefield. As Habash noted, when we set fire to a
store in London [referring to the incendiary bombs in Marks and Spencer, August
17, 1969], those few flames are worth the burning of two Kibbutzim [Israeli set-
tlements] because we force people to ask what is going on .... Palestine's Arab
Commandos, LIFE, June 12, 1970, at 26D, 33.
3. The success of most terrorist-created episodes is evaluated by whether
the episode moved the terrorists closer to the ultimate goal for which the group
used political violence. The ephemeral advantage brought about during a hostage
crisis is not a meaningful substitute for a victory on the battlefield. For an analysis
of the theoretical dynamics of the various types of political violence and their rela-
tionship to the struggle for power, see T. GURR, WHY MEN REBEL 236-37 (1971).
Gurr does not deal specifically with terrorism, but the use of terrorism as a form of
conspiracy is easily incorporated into his model.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/rutlj13&div=32&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Terrorism and Hostage Taking: Lessons from the Iranian Crisis
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