Iran and the United States are locked into a curious process of trying to show "goodwill" to one another in order to improve relations -- but not so much goodwill as to antagonise their respective domestic constituencies. There is little question that Presidents George Bush and Ali Akbar Rafsanjani both want to set in motion events which lead to the resumption of ties. Bush wants to get US hostages out of Lebanon; Rafsanjani wants Western assistance in Iran's post-war reconstruction effort. But there are plenty of American Congressmen who do not want the United States to have anything to do with a country involved in "state sponsored terrorism", just as there are plenty of Iranian radicals who still adhere to the rejection of the Great Satan.
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