NUKE PROGRAM CONTROVERSY ISOLATES IRANIAN HARDLINERS

The conflict over Iran’s blatant violation of the NPT and , thus far, refusal to adopt the IAEA suggested additional protocol has become a focal point in the power struggle between moderate reformers and the extreme hardliners in the Khameini-Rafsanjani-Pasdaran ruling clique. The recent Bush-Putin summit indicates that Russia will not continue to covertly aid Rafsanjani’s dream of a nuclear-armed Iran in the glare of world publicity. They’re willing to help the mullahs of course and have done so since at least 1992 but not at the diplomatic cost of appearing to openly sanction cheating on the NPT