The confidential International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report provided to Russia and other members of the IAEA Board of Governors declares in paragraph 85: "Based on all information currently available to the Agency, it is clear that Iran has failed in a number of instances over an extended period of time to meet its obligations under its Safeguards Agreement."

Russia is wise to view the Iranian nuclear matter in the context of international law, which in turn requires referral to the Security Council. Under international law the "right" to nuclear energy functions more like a privilege, subject to conditions and restrictions Iran has flaunted, as indicated by the IAEA report making clear that Iran has followed a pattern of concealment and deception.

Russia also is wise in its security policy to highlight the central importance of opposing terrorism, and, despite Iranian assertions that Iran will regard Chechnya as an internal matter, Russia should not overlook Iran's track record as a state sponsor of terrorism, including having been found liable in courts of law in connection with terrorist acts.

The temptation to view the Iranian manner in terms of business opportunities should be balanced against Russia's desire to be viewed as a global leader as well as its anti-terrorist stance.

As the Iranian regime moves towards it latest showdown before the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors on Nov. 25, 2004, it may be worth noting what a senior Bush administration official had to say in late September about why the United States wanted the matter referred to the Security Council, including Russia's role as a Security Council permanent member.

During a question-and-answer session following prepared remarks on proliferation threats and the IAEA on September 28, 2004, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton explained:

"Well, I think the first thing we would get out of a referral to the Security Council is a change in the global political calculus of the importance, the saliency, of the Iranian program, and I think changing that calculus should, hopefully will, change the cost-benefit analysis that's going on in Tehran. I think at a minimum having the five permanent members of the Council address the Iran question in their capacity as permanent members would be significant. I think one of our - one of the concerns we've had with Russia is that their involvement in the Iranian nuclear program, the construction of the Bushehr reactor and the supply of fuel for that reactor puts them in the position of a supplier to Iran. And they are concerned that if they were to withdraw from Bushehr they would simply be replaced by some other commercial entity from another country. I can understand that commercial concern but that's not the approach that we would like them to have. And I think seeing the issue in their capacity as one of the five permanent members of the Security Council would have an effect on the way they view it."

In other words, the United States and the world benefit from a Russia that acts as global leader and caretaker of global security, as opposed to a narrowly focused individual economic actor.

Russia's potential to contribute sound global leadership on the matter is hinted at by the fact that public pronouncements by President Putin and other Russian officials consistently have couched Iranian access to nuclear energy within the context of international law.

Respect for international law is important not only in its own right, but also in light of Article 15 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation according international law a preemptive status in the Russian legal hierarchy.

International law addresses the Iranian matter in several ways. As is often the case, rights are accompanied by responsibilities and must be balanced against competing rights and interests. The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) delimits any "right" to nuclear energy as one conditioned upon restrictions and requirements and as a practical matter thereby makes access to nuclear energy something more akin to a privilege. As its name would suggest, the NPT subordinates access to nuclear energy to the more pressing concern of nonproliferation, the NPT's primary purpose.

Even if the day came when the Iranian nation were lawfully permitted access to nuclear energy, an NPT-based nuclear "right" need not include the indigenous creation of the entire nuclear fuel cycle, as Russia apparently already has noted given the way it has arranged the Bushehr contract. Whether the NPT envisions a right to develop the entire nuclear fuel cycle is ambiguous at best, and to argue that it did may not be consistent with the negotiating history of the NPT.

International law further addresses matters such as the Iranian problem by framing the functions and duties of the IAEA and its Board, including explaining how the IAEA fits within a broader UN system. As the Statute of the IAEA directs in Article 3: "if in connection with the activities of the Agency there should arise questions that are within the competence of the Security Council, the Agency shall notify the Security Council, as the organ bearing the main responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security."

In other words, while some Russian officials and others have been tempted to try to honor the IAEA by leaving the Iranian matter within the IAEA, the IAEA's defining functions include making necessary referrals to the Security Council. Under the language quoted above, when international peace and security is involved such referral is mandatory. Obstructing one of its core functions does not honor the IAEA but rather by definition interferes with and hinders its basic operation, undermining the framework that envisioned the IAEA working hand-in-glove with the Security Council.

Similarly, the Statute of the IAEA mandates in Article XII that the Board of Governors "shall report ... non-compliance to all members and to the Security Council and General Assembly of the United Nations."

Iran's safeguards agreement augments this prong of referral options by coming at noncompliance from yet another angle. While the Statute of the IAEA mandates that there "shall" be referral in all cases of established noncompliance, Article 19 of the safeguards agreement provides that there also "may" be referral in cases where it simply is not possible to establish that no diversion of nuclear material to non-peaceful purposes has occurred.

As a result there are multiple potentially alternative tracks for Security Council referral.

Ironically Russia might enjoy greater impact on the Iranian matter by cooperating with efforts to refer it to the Security Council, a smaller body within which Russia holds a veto.

Moreover, "leaving" the matter in the IAEA does not preclude sanctions. Under Article XII of the IAEA Statute, ultimate Iranian failure to fully take corrective action in this still unfolding inquiry could result in IAEA-based sanctions such as "direct curtailment or suspension of assistance being provided by the Agency or by a member, and call for the return of materials and equipment made available to the recipient member or group of members." Under the plain text of the IAEA Statute the IAEA Board of Governors theoretically could undo the Russian contract as a countermeasure against Iran even for noncompliance wholly unrelated to the Russian contract.

In the end, though, one of the questions still to be explored from the Russian perspective is where the money from the Iranian deal goes, whose interests are at stake, and whether those interests could ever outweigh Russia's global leadership role or interest in fighting terrorism. While the Russian government itself reportedly is at the heart of the deal, eclectic private interests reportedly also are involved, including, strangely, even one individual who since has left Russia to assume a senior post with a foreign government not necessarily in agreement with Russia on security matters.

Paradoxically, charges Russia is driven by economic gain could have a positive side. If, despite Russia's professed desire to build relations with Iran as a Caspian regional partner, Russia thus far has actually been driven more by the money, then that could mean Russia does not really have all that strong a desire to cozy up as a strategic partner with the Iranian regime after all -- a terrorist-backing regime that paints "Death to Israel" on the sides of its missiles, a regime that by proxy once took a U.S. embassy hostage for more than a year, a regime which in an earlier form was implicated in one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in the history of the planet by backing the terrorist group that blew up the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut.

Whether in the future the Iranian regime also will be implicated in an even more massive *nuclear* explosion by a terrorist group depends in part on whether global players like Russia are willing to put prudence ahead of revenue.

Would Russia deserve to be compensated for foregoing economic opportunity in this case? Perhaps so, especially if combined with acceleration of WMD security and disposal activities within Russia itself. Or perhaps a compromise position simply would be to hold the Iranian contract in abeyance until Iran is ruled by a different regime presenting fewer problems to international peace and security.

It may turn out that Iran the nation, i.e., the Iranian people, may deserve access to nuclear energy in the end. But the regime currently ruling Iran has given up that right, taking into account the totality of circumstances under which the program is to be appraised, including but certainly not limited to sponsorship of terrorism and years of concealment and deception.