An Ounce of Prevention

Getting wind of Iran’s interest in buying high-performance military planes from Moldova, once a part of the Soviet Union, the Pentagon struck preemptively and has now transported to the United States the whole of the Moldovan air force, 21 MIG-29s, including 14 of the advanced MIG-29C models. The Defense Department won’t reveal what it paid, but Moldovan and U.S. sources put the figure at $40 million. That’s money well spent, although a Moldovan official’s comment that lack of maintenance in recent years has left the planes “too dangerous to fly” suggests the jets will be spending some time in the shop before U.S. pilots can take them aloft to evaluate their performance characteristics.

By coincidence, word of the deal came as Iran was holding its annual “Death to America” day to commemorate its seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran 18 years ago. Defense Secretary William Cohen made clear the purchase was specifically to keep the planes out of the hands of “rogue states, including Iran,” which is believed to be trying to develop a nuclear weapons capability. The International Institute of Strategic Studies in London says Iran already has 30 MIG-29s but probably not the MIG-29C, which can carry a 6,600-pound payload and fly farther than earlier models.

Purchase of the MIGs is part of a farsighted program approved by Congress to keep aggressive regimes or terrorist movements from getting nuclear materials--and, by extension, delivery systems--owned by former Warsaw Pact countries. The quick U.S. action in Moldova, a small, landlocked country between Ukraine and Romania, was sound preventive action and good policy. Cohen says the Pentagon has no interest in going into the unwanted-arms acquisition business in a big way. Maybe, but it had better brace itself for all kinds of offers nonetheless.