Germans learned through ARD public television March 20 that their country is home to some 100 arms-smuggling shell companies that funnel restricted technologies -- such as night-vision equipment, missile technology, and F-14 Tomcat parts -- to Iran. As noted by Karl-Heinz Matthias, president of the Federal Customs Office: "We're talking about companies made up one to three persons who don't necessarily produce anything themselves but rather order something from the producers and then conceal where the stuff is going."

The TV report, which alleged that the German government has known about these companies since 2002, sparked a buzz across the country, with the obvious question being: If the government has been aware of these firms for four years, then why did the previous government allow them to operate so freely? The as-yet-unspoken answer is that former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's government did not mind allowing things to happen that annoyed Washington.

Iran is habitually hungry for defense technology, particularly any part that will help to keep its F-14 fleet in the air. At the time of the Shah's fall, Tehran sported a fleet of 79 F-14s, giving it far and away the most powerful air force in the region. But since relations between Washington and Tehran have not been exactly chummy these past 27 years, the United States has not felt particularly beholden to supply Iran with parts or maintenance. As such, Iran has had to cannibalize its F-14s to keep any of them in service, and now typically they only fly solo or in two-strong detachments.

Iranian personnel habitually scour the global for any hint of technology or equipment that could help keep those F-14s serviceable. In this regard, however, Iran faces a monumental challenge because only two countries have ever used the plane: Iran and the United States. The U.S. Navy, which is in the process of decommissioning what F-14s remain in service, is fully aware of Iran's plight -- and not about to come to the rescue. As such, before F-14s are sent to the scrap yard, the aircraft are stripped of useful gizmos, either for shredding or for recycling within the U.S. military. Iranian desperation is so acute that its agents reportedly have absconded with stripped and scrapped airframe parts.

Regardless of where the parts come from or how great their use to the Iranian military, German prosecutors seem convinced that at least some of those that head to the Islamic Republic are smuggled quite illegally through Germany.

The official who is likely to suffer the most from this scandal is Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who served as Schroeder's national intelligence coordinator -- and enforcer. His close relationship with the former chancellor makes him the logical target for anyone who has an axe to grind with the former government.

This all works out wunderbar for current Chancellor Angela Merkel. First, Steinmeier, like Schroeder, is a member of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), not Merkel's own center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), so any fallout should steer clear of her own power base. Second, Merkel's CDU-SPD coalition is awkward and unstable, so anything that weakens the SPD internally is great news for the CDU, and by extension the chancellor.

Third, of the SPD personalities in her Cabinet, Steinmeier presents the greatest potential problem. In addition to being a representative of the ancient regime, he is well enmeshed into the SPD party structure. (Vice Chancellor Franz Muentefering would have been the thorn, but he fell from party leadership in a generational and ideological squabble just as the government was forming.)

Fourth, this is not Steinmeier's first brush with problems associated with the Schroeder legacy. He also is accused of such things as selling out Germany's national interests to Russia in exchange for a cushy job with a Russian state company and of authorizing collaboration with the United States in Iraq. Some detractors also say his willingness to scorn the United States made him too buddy-buddy with Iran. At this point, the truth of any specific accusation is beginning to become irrelevant. The point is that Steinmeier has, through limited-at-most fault of his own, become a lightning rod for the criticism of Schroeder's increasingly tarnished historical legacy.

This all leaves Merkel as pleased as punch. While she does not seem to bear her foreign minister any malice, she certainly knows a political opportunity when she sees one. A clipped Steinmeier not only chastises the other seven SPD ministers in her Cabinet, but reformulates influence within the SPD itself, concentrating power in the hands of new party leader Matthias Platzeck. Unlike Steinmeier -- the stereotypical western German old-guard political hack -- Platzeck is from Merkel's side of the Wall, communist East Germany. Merkel and Platzeck may be from opposite sides of the aisle, but being from the same side of the Iron Curtain has made them into constructive associates, if not ideological allies.

In addition to extending his own personal control of the party, Platzeck probably is quietly welcoming the accusations as well. Just as Merkel can use the scandals to highlight the difference between Schroeder's government and her own, Platzeck -- who just became party leader in November 2005 -- can clearly delineate between "Schroeder's SPD" and his own.

If the result of all this is a more circumspect SPD under the firmer control of a man that Merkel can somewhat trust, then the woman who has demonstrated an impressive combination of skill and aplomb since becoming chancellor not even four months ago will have perhaps managed her most impressive feat yet: securing control over her own government.