In the presence of representatives from Iran, Russia and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the first nuclear fuel rods, provided by Russia, were installed into the reactor core of Iran's Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant on August 21. The program, which had been repeatedly delayed and postponed, finally entered its practical use phase.

According to a 1995 contract between Iran and Russia, the Bushehr nuclear plant should have been completed in July 1999. It ultimately took 15 years for the two countries to finish the construction of the 100,000-kilowatt nuclear plant.

Nuclear green light

BEGINNING OPERATIONS: An Iranian security guard stands outside the reactor building at the Russian-built Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant in southern Iran on August 21 (XINHUA/AFP)

The program was delayed mainly due to political, rather than technical or financial, reasons. The United States has opposed the plant since the contract was first signed. It insisted Russia cancel the contract and thought Iran would covertly develop nuclear weaponry under the guise of nuclear energy manufacturing. In the last 15 years, no Russian presidents, from Boris Yeltsin to Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev, would yield to the U.S. demand when faced with a possible economic gain of $1 billion.

In fact, the Bushehr plant and the Iranian nuclear issue became Russia's two trump cards when playing diplomatic games with the United States. Whenever the United States pressed the expansion of NATO or the deployment of a missile defense system in Europe, Russia took Iran's side on the nuclear issue; and when the U.S. side compromised with Russia, Russia criticized Iran. After Barack Obama assumed presidency, Washington tried to gain Russian support by adjusting its missile defense system in Poland. As a result, the Russian stance on Iran's nuclear programs has been very uneven during the last year.

In the past, due to strategic, economic and diplomatic reasons, Russia chose to neither abandon nor complete the Bushehr nuclear plant. And the green light to install nuclear fuel rods on August 21 can be traced to changes in the U.S. policy.

Opposing the construction of an Iranian nuclear power plant was the traditional U.S. stance. Even in early 2010, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said during a Russian visit that until Iran ceased uranium enrichment, no progress should be made on the Bushehr plant. Now that stance has changed.

On the day the plant began operations, the U.S. Government said it believed the plant was aimed at providing civil nuclear energy and did not pose nuclear proliferation risks. It stressed the nuclear reactor was under IAEA supervision, and Russia was in charge of providing nuclear fuel rods and taking back nuclear waste. On the previous day, Russia said it was on the same page as the United States regarding the Bushehr nuclear power plant. Why, suddenly, was a 15-year-old problem no longer a problem?

The Obama administration recently found itself in an Iran dilemma. Neither war nor peace seemed to be a good option and both Israel and the U.S. Congress frequently pressed the White House on the issue. If Obama is unable to make a good impression before November's mid-term elections, his Democratic Party will be negatively affected.

Sanctions were Obama's first option. Near the end of 2009, the White House proposed a fourth round of UN sanctions against Iran, but was opposed by Russia and China. Russia stood against the sanctions because they concerned many programs of Russian interest. After six months of negotiations, sanctions against some programs China and Russia were unwilling to accept, such as the Bushehr plant, were removed from the list. In June, the UN Security Council approved the new sanctions.

When the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1929, the United States actually gave a green light to the construction of the Bushehr plant. And since the United States stopped caring about the program, it was no longer diplomatically beneficial for Russia. It was time for Russia and Iran to conclude the program.

Tehran clearly knows its role in the U.S.-Iran game and has never forced Russia into a corner. Its patience paid off and its nuclear power dream has been realized. As the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization Ali Akbar Salehi said, Iran beat its enemy in the diplomatic field.

Continuing hostility

The contention over the Bushehr plant is over, but hostility between Iran and the United States is not. Moreover, Iran remains strategically important to Russia, and the diplomatic battle over the Iranian nuclear issue will continue.

The crux of the problem is the enmity that has existed between Tehran and Washington since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Since then, the United States has treated Iran as a hostile state. Iran also considers the United States its biggest security threat and hopes to drive U.S. influence out of the Persian Gulf and the Middle East.