Investor's Business Daily, March 12th, 2007
Axis Of Evil: Russia says the launch of Iran's nuclear power plant will be delayed because Tehran is behind in making construction payments. Two possibilities come immediately to mind, both of them encouraging.
First, if Tehran is truly delinquent on its payments to the state-run Atomstroiexport, it's another confirmation that the regime's hold on the country has grown tenuous and that needed change could come with light prodding in the right places.
Second, it's possible that this is merely a way for Russia to save face while it backs off its aid to a rogue nation it has supported. The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran's strong denial that it isn't up to date on payments lends some credibility to this theory.
Either way, the benefits accrue to the U.S., the West, the Iranian people and civilization in general. The mullah-run Iranian regime is a danger to peace and prosperity. Its end cannot arrive too soon and in fact might not be far off, according to some observers.
"Imagine that Iran is a hard-boiled egg with a thin shell," columnist Victor Davis Hanson wrote in February. "We should tap it lightly wherever we can -- until tiny fissures join and shatter the shell."
The optimism among Hanson and others is based on several factors, including the government's revenue and economic problems due to Iran's crumbling oil industry, which provides the state with 70% of its income and the nation with a quarter of its GDP.
Internal squabbles over President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's aggressive nuclear program and an apparent growing strain of dissent are further hints that Iran's thin shell could crack soon.
Russia has thrown up a hurdle every time the U.S. has tried to use international levers to block Tehran's nuclear program. But there are some suggestions that Vladimir Putin's government might be moving stealthily toward a more sensible position.
In addition to Monday's announcement that the September launch of Iran's first nuclear plant will be postponed because Tehran is behind on payments, Russia's three main news agencies quoted an "informed source" within Putin's government as saying Iran is "abusing our constructive relations," and that it "is unacceptable for us to have an Iran with a nuclear bomb."
The news agencies also said that Moscow has grown weary of Iran's defiance of the United Nations sanctions that were established to thwart its nuclear program.
If Putin is indeed orchestrating a face-saving turnaround, we welcome his principled decision and grudgingly admire his deft political moves. If he's not, he might soon wish he had.
Copyright 2007 Investor's Business Daily, Inc.
