The Russians may soon rethink their defense of the Islamic Republic of Iran against the West if this report from the Sunday Telegraph gets confirmed, although it should surprise no one paying any attention to the global war on terror. According to Con Coughlin, the Iranian government has secretly trained Chechen rebels to conduct more effective terror strikes against Russian targets while Moscow continues to argue on Teheran's behalf for their nuclear ambitions:

Teams of Chechen fighters are being trained at the Revolutionary Guards' Imam Ali training camp, located close to Tajrish Square in Teheran, according to Western intelligence reports.

In addition to receiving training in the latest terror techniques, the Chechen volunteers undergo ideological and political instruction by hardline Iranian mullahs at Qom. ...

Moscow has offered a face-saving formula to prevent Iran from being reported to the United Nations Security Council for its failure to co-operate fully with UN nuclear inspection teams.

It wouldn't be the first time in history that a Russian strongman completely misunderstood the threat of fascism on its borders. The last time it cost Russians, Ukrainians, Georgians, and others of the old Soviet Union millions of civilian lives because Joseph Stalin short-sightedly focused on carving up Poland. This time, it appears that Vladimir Putin has been made a fool for playing a spiteful game with encroaching but chiefly benign Western interests.

The hardliners hardly just came to power with the "election" of Ahmaninejad as president of Iran; the Guardian Council of radical Islamist imams have run Iran since Ayatollah Khomeini died. They have long given support and direction to Islamofascist terror groups, and the so-called Chechen rebellion has slowly transformed itself from a genuinely nationalist movement to an Islamist expansion effort in the Caucasus in the past few years. Only an idiot would find himself surprised to find Iran behind that effort, considering the map of the region and the strategic nature of the Caucasus to Southwest Asia as a buffer to Russian military power.

And yet, inexplicably, Putin has continued to succor Teheran and the Islamist government there while cluelessly fighting Iranian provocateurs in the Caucasian republics. Why? He wants to restore Russia as a world power that can counterbalance the United States and, to a lesser extent, the UK.

Putin may just have learned the Iranian version of 'spasibo', my poor phonetic for the Russian word for 'thank you'. Perhaps we can learn Farsi for 'pathetic fools' as well.

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