Hostage Negotiator Reveals Secrets to Dealing With Iran
Giandomenico Picco worked with the notorious Imad Mughniyeh to free Western hostages 20 years ago. The talks were so secretive that Picco has only just revealed that Israeli intelligence confirmed Mughniyeh's identity. As Iran nuclear talks escalate, the veteran negotiator suggests using "out of the box" solutions and showing a little respect.
In my efforts to free Western hostages in Lebanon in the early 1990s, I often had to do unorthodox things—such as allowing myself to be blindfolded and taken by masked men to unknown places in the middle of the night to meet masked interlocutors.
According to an Israeli intelligence official who I subsequently met, one of my hosts was none other than Imad Mughniyeh, the notorious Hezbollah intelligence chief and liaison with Iran who was killed in Damascus, most likely by an Israeli hit team, in 2008.
In my first encounter with Mughniyeh, he made it clear to me that he did not expect me to be “impartial” for he knew well that snatching innocent people from the streets of Beirut and detaining them for years was “wrong.” He added, “We have no other tool,” implying that if I had a better suggestion, he would be glad to hear it.
Having been involved in face-to-face negotiations in other cases, I have long learned that “impartiality” does not exist. We all have our own narratives, both national and individual, that are the core of who we are and what we do.
