For the past several years, Iran has been busy making itself the world's odd man out: ignoring United Nations efforts to end its war with Iraq, boycotting the U.N. Security Council because of its alleged anti-Tehran bias, attacking neutral shipping in the Persian Gulf. Last week it paid the price for its self-imposed isolation. Twice it sought an international condemnation of the U.S. on an issue on which Washington would otherwise have been vulnerable, the July 3 shootdown of Iran Air Flight 655 over the gulf. But twice it came away with nothing.
Iran's first plea was to the International Civil...