What happened? Some saw Iran taking this action to reduce growing concerns that it really does seek to acquire nuclear weapons despite its repeated claims to the contrary. If Iran enriches its own uranium, as it previously said it would do, Washington and others fear that it would do so beyond the lesser requirements of an atomic energy reactor to the higher degree needed for nuclear weapons. Iran agreeing to allow Russia to enrich uranium for it would alleviate this concern and help avoid a crisis or even a conflict between the U.S. and Iran. According to this view, Iran backed down before reaching the brink of a crisis.

Others saw Iran as making this agreement with Russia in an attempt to sew divisions among those opposing its nuclear program. Russia, China, and even the EU -- Tehran might hope -- will seize upon this agreement as a reason not to support American calls for U.N. Security Council measures against Iran. According to this view, Iran made the agreement to isolate the U.S. from other nations.

I must admit, a third explanation for this Russian-Iranian agreement occurred to me: Moscow and Tehran reached it just to embarrass me and prove me wrong. According to this view, I had grossly underestimated the capacity of these two governments to cooperate despite their differences.

Within days of the agreement being announced, however, bits and pieces of information emerged casting doubt on its significance and even its existence. First of all, it turned out that the Feb. 26 agreement was merely an "agreement in principle" and not a final one.

Further, Tehran reportedly rejected Moscow's call to completely halt the enrichment of uranium inside Iran. This meant that Russian enrichment of uranium for Iran would not ensure that Iran would not have access to weapons grade uranium.

In addition, The Washington Post quoted unnamed "Russian analysts following the talks [who] said Iran wants security guarantees that it would not be attacked by the United States." These security guarantees, of course, are not something that Moscow is in a position to give to Tehran.

Finally -- and not surprisingly -- it was announced on March 1 that Russian-Iranian talks on this issue ended without a final agreement being reached or even an indication of when further talks might occur. The question of whether Iran would or would not enrich some of its own uranium appeared to be the issue on which neither was willing to give in on.

These developments, of course, have only served to undermine the explanations of why the Russian-Iranian "agreement" was announced in the first place on Feb. 26. Clearly, Iran has not drawn back from the brink of a crisis by acquiescing to Russia refining uranium for it. Indeed, its insistence on continuing to refine some uranium itself has only intensified concern that Tehran is seeking to acquire nuclear weapons.

Further, if Iran's goal was to isolate America from the EU, Russia, and China by showing signs of cooperation on the nuclear issue through allowing Russia to enrich its uranium, Tehran itself undermined this effort by almost instantly dashing the expectations of Russia and other major powers that it would completely forego uranium enrichment inside Iran. Indeed, absent a willingness to forego uranium enrichment at home, Tehran's willingness for Russia to refine only some of its uranium seems pointless in resolving the crisis.

Lastly, it is now clear that Moscow and Tehran did not seek to embarrass me or prove me wrong (or if they did: they failed!). I obviously did not underestimate their capacity to cooperate with each other. Indeed, their inability to cooperate on this issue over the past week is precisely what I expect from them -- both now and well into the future.

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