Russia is eager to arm the ayatollahs
Implementing President Obama’s nuclear weapons deal with Iran has provided about $150 billion for the ayatollahs’ coffers since international sanctions were lifted. By January, even Secretary of State John Kerry had to concede that some of the money would be used to sponsor terrorists.
That shouldn’t have come as a shock even to Mr. Kerry. Iran is the world’s principal state sponsor of terrorism. It also shouldn’t have shocked him that Iran is spending at least $8 billion on arms purchases designed to prevent any nation from successfully attacking its nuclear weapons facilities as well as to strengthen its conventional forces.
About two weeks ago, Gen. Hossein Dehqan, Iran’s defense minister, met with Russian President Vladimir Putin to arrange delivery of Russian S-300 missiles Iran purchased previously. Gen. Dehqan also sought to buy new Su-30 “Flanker” fighter jets and T-90 tanks, Russia’s most advanced tanks. (Mr. Putin had no qualms about dealing with Gen. Dehqan, believed to have been the architect of the 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon that killed 220 Marines and 21 other servicemen.)
There’s no reason for Mr. Putin to deny these purchases, especially now that Iran has so much money to spend and because Iran has been a key Russian ally for decades. (There’s a U.N. Security Council resolution that supposedly bars Iran from purchasing weapons, such as military aircraft without U.N. approval. Good luck enforcing that.)