Yesterday, AFP reported that Mohammed ElBaradei, the chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, is embroiled in a disagreement with his staffers on Iran’s nuclear program. “I’ve heard that some of his technical staff are not happy,” said one diplomat. “There’s a concern that most of the big issues are going to be declared as resolved when there’s still a feeling that they’re anything but.”

ElBaradei’s attempt to override his experts comes after his mid-January trip to Tehran. Soon after meeting the head of the IAEA, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stopped insisting that the Islamic Republic would accept no interference from outsiders in its nuclear program. The fiery Iranian leader said that “Nobody except the International Atomic Energy Agency has the right to make decisions or impose anything on the Iranian nation.”

Why would Ahmadinejad now be willing to accept restraints from the IAEA? And why would the usually meticulous IAEA boss throw caution to the wind and give Iran his seal of approval at this critical moment? Perhaps these reversals of long-held positions are merely the product of coincidence or good fortune, but other explanations are more probable. One of them, for instance, is that ElBaradei has been engaging in unauthorized diplomacy of some sort, maybe a secret arrangement with the mullahs.

Whatever he is doing, it’s not constructive and Washington needs to learn more about it before the next IAEA Board of Governors meeting, scheduled to begin March 3. The United States is already on the defensive, and ElBaradei looks like he is about to deal a mortal blow to Western efforts to stop the Iranian nuclear program.