The stage is set for a new escalation of tension between Russia and the West after Great Britain’s demand on Moscow for the extradition of Andrei Lugovoi. Mr. Lugovoi is suspected by British officials of murdering his fellow former KGB officer, Alexander Litvinenko, by poisoning him with polonium-210. The thing for Americans to understand about the case is that it takes place in the context of rising Russian disregard for the rule of law.

We speak of a report in Jane’s Defence Weekly, that, according to a summary by the Reuters news agency, indicates that at least 10 of the 50 Pantsyr-S1E short-range gun and missile air defense systems that Syria is purchasing from Russia will be transferred on to Iran. What Russia is doing selling the air defense systems to Syria in the first place is beyond us. The sale mounts to a $730 million upgrade in the military capability of a state sponsor of terrorism that has been a peril to its neighbors Israel, Iraq, and Lebanon.

That the weapons could be transferred onward to Iran from Syria makes the situation even more outrageous. Even Reuters noted that in March, the United Nations Security Council on which Russia sits approved a resolution “urging all states to exercise ‘vigilance and restraint’ in the supply, sale or transfer of weaponry to Iran, including missile systems.”

President Putin is fond of claiming that Russia is a target of the Islamist extremists, and the slaughter at Beslan supports that point. But if Russia continues arming the terrorists and harboring accused assassins, its claim to share with America and Western Europe any of the moral high ground in the current war is going to be difficult to credit.