Iran And Russia's Nuclear Cooperation To Explore

Iran's nuclear research started from the 1950s. With King Pahlavi's pro-western policy, its nuclear program was backed up by the U.S and its western allies. As a consequence, Iran's nuclear issue didn't become a real problem until the Iran Islamic Revolution in 1979. At that very point, the U.S broke off its ties and nuclear cooperation with Islamic Iran. At the same while, the U.S exerted its strong influences toward its western allies so as not to cooperate with Iran, which made them flinch unintentionally. Therefore, form a certain extent, the real substance of Iran nuclear issue is the Iran-U.S relation. While as the successor of former Soviet Union, Russian has undergone great pressure by its stagnated economy, plumped comprehensive national strength and the sense of loss caused by the comparison between its glorious past and the decadence nowadays. Thus, Russia and Iran, feeling kinship to each other, prompted by the great interest, tried to boost their bilateral ties on the basis of nuclear cooperation. On the one hand, from the perspective of Russia, it can maintain its national interests, boost its economy, and strengthen its power while bargaining with its western feuds during the nuclear cooperation. On the other, with regard to Iran, Russia is the only existing power who still bolsters its nuclear activity. With Russia's assistance, it can manage the nuclear technology, and then threats its enemy so as to enhance its national security. However, the nuclear cooperation still meets a lot of restrains: the first one to be discussed is the inner recognition between these two countries. The second one to be mentioned is from the outside word, such as attitudes from America, Israel and Arabian countries. In another word, the nuclear cooperation between these two countries may easily be affected by the different recognitions and the changes of the outside environment, which makes the nuclear cooperation featured as unsteadiness, asymmetry and oneness. Nevertheless, as both countries stick to the pragmatic principle when dealing with the ties between each other, the disturbance from the outside is very limited, and the inner rift can be narrowed down through negotiation and"possible exchanges". Therefore, Russia will not stop its nuclear cooperation with Iran until Iran's nuclear activity reaches its bottom line--nuclear nonproliferation. What's more, new hot issues emerge in recent years, such as the U.S's deployment of missile shield in Poland and Czech Republic, Kosovo independence, and Russia-Georgia conflict, which serve as an opportunity for Russia-Iran nuclear cooperation, hence, it can be predicted that the nuclear collaboration between this two countries will still be promoted in the future, but in a tortuous way.