On Monday, the Russians started delivering nuclear fuel to Iran’s first nuclear power plant. Moscow has been building the Bushehr nuclear power plant for Iran since 1992. Now that Russian officials say that the nuclear complex is within six months of completion, they have started to deliver the nuclear fuel needed to run it. Thanks to the Kremlin and Russian state-owned company Atomstroiexport, Iran should have nuclear power by mid-2008.

The delivery of this nuclear fuel removes one of the most significant practical sanctions against Tehran, says bbc diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus. Not only has Moscow refused to impose sanctions on Iran in an effort to halt its uranium enrichment program, it has gone so far as to actually sell nuclear fuel to the Iranians to get their nuclear program on its feet.

United States President George W. Bush has stated that he is actually pleased that Moscow is sending Iran enriched uranium. The Russians have ensured that the uranium is not enriched enough for use in a nuclear weapon and Bush has said that, “If the Iranians accept that uranium for a civilian nuclear power plant, then there’s no need for them to learn how to enrich.”

The fact is, however, the Iranians have graciously accepted Russia’s uranium and continued to enrich their own uranium. The head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization, Gholam Reza Aghazadeh, said that more nuclear fuel was needed for a second nuclear power plant under construction and that the fuel for this plant must come from Natanz, the site of Iran’s uranium enrichment plant.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told a news conference on December 11 that Iran needs to build 50,000 uranium enrichment centrifuges within the next five years so that it can make enough nuclear fuel to power one nuclear power plant. The UN International Atomic Energy Agency estimates that Iran has only 3,000 centrifuges now.

Since the release of the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate, Ahmadinejad has declared his intent to increase his uranium enrichment program 16-fold, and Russia, after delaying for some time, has committed to finishing Iran’s first nuclear plant within the next six months. Clearly, Ahmadinejad and the Iranian mullahs have no intention of stopping their uranium enrichment program.

Far from showing Iran that it has no need to enrich its own uranium, Moscow’s assistance is only giving Iran more uranium to work with, as well as its first nuclear power plant.

Russia’s move to assist Iran is not motivated by love for the Iranians, however, but rather by a desire to undermine U.S. influence in the Middle East. By keeping the United States and Iran in a long-term diplomatic struggle, Russia frees itself to go about restoring its Soviet-era strength.

Watch for anti-Americanism to continue to define the relationship between Russia and Iran. For more information on anti-American alliances around the world, read “Which Is the Isolated State: Iran—or America?”