What does BRICS entry mean for Iran?

On August 24, 2023 BRICS adopted Iran together with five other countries as new members defying Western rhetoric and discourse. The historic enlargement of BRICS will create new opportunities and will enhance global efforts against hegemony and unilateralism.

The year 2023 marks the 17th anniversary of BRICS inception. Albeit different in geopolitical locations, political systems and cultural backgrounds, members of BRICS do share development-oriented agendas. Members are either newly emerging economies featuring high economic growth or developing countries aspiring for development.

This is sharply different from the approach of the United States and the West to shape the world with a democratic model defined by their own. In addition, they all enshrine the principle of independence in their foreign policy.

BRICS member states have been very clear that the mechanism will be inclusive adhering to the principle of multilateralism and cultural diversity. The practices of BRICS had particularly demonstrated respect for all member states. That should be one of the reasons why BRICS had proved to be attractive, particularly for countries that had long been oppressed and humiliated by Western hegemonic powers.

The development of BRICS reflected a very strong global trend of anti-hegemony and anti-unilateralism. Most BRICS members, like China, Russia and Brazil, had been vociferous about their dissatisfaction against US financial hegemony and the weaponization of dollar as a payment channel. None of the BRICS members had shared with the US and the West their discourse on the Russia-Ukraine conflicts, and none of them had sided with the US on its efforts to provoke the fire.

The Johannesburg Summit had sufficiently demonstrated the attraction of BRICS. Six countries had been admitted into the mechanisms, more than 20 countries had formally applied to enter the mechanism, more than 40 countries had expressed their wish to be part of the mechanism, and more than 60 countries across the world had participated in various activities of the Summit, which was about 30 percent of the member states of the UN.

The enlargement will predictably make BRICS more important in international affairs as the share of member states in world economy will increase significantly and the political representation of the mechanism will grow. Therefore, BRICS will not only serve to maintain the right direction of global governance in a variety of areas including trade and financial cooperation, which had become dysfunctional as a result of confrontational mentalities of some Western countries. BRICS will also boost business opportunities for both old and new industries of all their members, and will create opportunities for its member states to reshape and even reverse the unreasonable narratives of some western powers on various issues including Russia-Ukraine conflicts and other issues.

Iran’s membership will especially enhance Iran’s international status in the international community. Over the last decades, Iran has made friends across the world in defiance of the efforts of certain hegemonic powers to isolate Iran. Entering BRICS will mean new opportunities for Iran to improve its standing.

Presence of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi at the Johannesburg summit with delegates from more than sixty countries across the world had signified another breakthrough in its diplomacy against Western efforts to isolate the Islamic Republic.

With the dual memberships in SCO and BRICS, Iran as a nation of great civilizations and economic potentials will see more opportunities to increase its international status. The leaders of BRICS countries have a valuable opportunity to leverage the space that has been created and enhance their mutual and multilateral interactions. If Iran holds SCO and BRICS summits, it will mean that dozens of heads of state and governments will travel to Tehran, which will naturally make Tehran a center of global politics and focus of international media, which will extremely nullify the efforts of the West to isolate Iran.

Multilateral diplomacy will mean natural economic opportunities. By presence at the summits, members have the opportunity to promote their business relations. Iran will also benefit from the joint efforts of de-dollarization judging by the consensus reached on this issue in Johannesburg. It should be considered that economic benefits would not come as soon as political achievements. However, it assumes that the policies adopted by Iran will contribute to the future strengthening of the country's economy.

Iran’s accession into BRICS is also a milestone in China-Iran relations. Iran’s application for BRICS membership, as well as SCO membership, not only demonstrated Iran’s identification with the principles and spirits of the BRICS, which could be generally categorized as inclusiveness, diversity and respect, but also trust for China as a major leading actor of BRICS.

China’s support for Iran’s accession very well indicated that China had been very serious in helping Iran to get further integrated with international community. Mutual trust between the two will be further enhanced after Iran’s dual memberships.

Iran’s accession will secondly enhance China-Iran cooperation on the reconstruction of international order. It had long been China’s policy to oppose sanctions against Iran and to help improve Iran’s status in the international community as the two shared a long history of peaceful exchange of civilizations and shared the same experience struggling for justice and fairness of international order.

With Iran’s membership in both SCO and BRICS, China and Iran with other countries in the two institutions, can work better together on issues relating to the great changes and reconstruction of international order.

On top of all, it will serve to materialize cooperation projects between the two countries. China and Iran both had been working hard to materialize the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership announced in 2016, the Comprehensive Cooperation Agreement in 2022 and various agreements in 2023 when President Raisi visited China.

Iran’s accession into SCO and BRICS will make these cooperations more feasible. In addition to bilateral mechanisms, leaders of the two sides will predictably meet with each other twice annually respectively within SCO and BRICS frameworks, and they can talk directly about the concrete issues, which will greatly facilitate cooperation between the two.

All in all, the enlargement of BRICS will create new momentums for global governance and the evolution of international order for the benefits of emerging economies and developing countries and the whole world as well.

Iran’s accession into BRICS, in addition to SCO, will greatly enhance Iran’s international status and will benefit Iran economically. The world will see how Iran can translate these new political momentums into economic benefits.

 

Moscow considering gas export to Pakistan through Iran

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak has said his country is considering export of natural gas to Pakistan and Afghanistan through Iran.

Novak said that in the long run, Russia can send its natural gas to the markets of Afghanistan and Pakistan, either using the infrastructure of Central Asia or by swapping from the territory of Iran.

Back in November, Iranian Oil Minister Javad Oji had announced a plan for cooperation with Russia and Pakistan on gas export to Islamabad.

Under the mentioned plan, Iran can tap Russian gas for a revival of its long-installed pipeline project to neighboring Pakistan.

As reported by Iranian media, Russia has agreed to supply gas to Iran for the purpose of delivery to Pakistan via the Iranian pipelines.

Russia has also agreed to build pipelines in Pakistan that were supposed to be built by the Pakistani side of a 1995 gas supply contract with Iran.

Russia’s contribution to the scheme comes as the country is trying to find new markets for natural gas supplies that were removed from the European markets because of Western sanctions on Moscow over the war in Ukraine.

Iran is also keen to partner with Russia in supplying gas to Pakistan as the country could benefit financially from the project while increased gas supplies from Russia will help the country address potential gas shortages in its northern regions.

Under a proposed swap scheme, Iran will import gas from Russia either through Turkmenistan or Azerbaijan to consume the supplies in its northern regions while committing to deliver the same amount of gas on the border with Pakistan.

Iran has another option to buy Russian gas for domestic consumption in its north without committing to any swap delivery of the same amount to other countries.

That will enable Iran to meet the growing domestic demand for natural gas and increase its gas supplies for the purpose of exports to other countries.

Experts believe both scenarios could benefit Iran although some prefer the swap model because it will lead to more Russian contribution to the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline project.

 

Finally United States kneels down before Iran

The United States announced to re-impose sanctions on Iran. President Donald Trump unilaterally pulled his country out from an agreement signed by big powers with Iran. The US government threatened countries to bring down their oil imports from Iran to zero or face similar sanctions. Many critics fail to understand the logic of President Trump as they strongly believe that he will not be able to achieve much by re-imposing sanctions.

Some analysts say that the US administration wishes to maintain a delicate balancing act with the waivers by ensuring the oil market has sufficient supply and avoid a politically damaging spike in fuel prices. The US also wants to ensure that Iran doesn’t collect enough revenue that the US sanctions become irrelevant. Countries that get waivers will be required to pay trough an escrow accounts in their local currency. That means the money won’t directly go to Iran, but will be allowed to use it for buying food, medicine or other non-sanctioned goods from its crude customers.

Let us first of all find the rationale behind re-imposition of sanctions on Iran by the US. I will prefer to use a quote. It says the re-imposition of sanctions on Iran by the US are aimed at achieving two targets: 1) quashing its nuclear ambitions and its ballistic missile program, but also 2) weakening its financial strength to support groups fighting proxy war in Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and other parts of the Middle East”.

Some analysts say that the US has imposed proxy war on the above stated countries for establishing its hegemony in Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The US efforts are aimed at weakening these countries so that they don’t become a potential threat for Israel, which has faced humiliating defeat in Lebanon. Hezbollah, a Lebanon-based resistance group smashing Israel’s military supremacy is often termed a terrorist outfit and alleged for receiving funds and military hardware from Iran.

No sooner did these sanctions became effective, the US confirmed granting waivers to eight countries, allowing them to continue to import oil from Iran for the next six months. The countries include South Korea, Japan, India, China, Turkey, Taiwan, Italy and Greece. The waivers will facilitate these to continue to import oil, although there is a great deal of disagreement among analysts over how much Iran’s exports will fall.

This waiver means that the supply situation will ease further. Reportedly Iran’s oil exports will stabilize at around 1 million barrels per day, and could even increase again in the coming months because Japan and South Korea have hardly been buying any Iranian oil lately. Receiving the waivers will allow them to continue buying. To be sure, not everyone agrees on this point, some believe the hawkish government in Washington will make other efforts to curb Iranian oil export.

Announcement of waivers, are a defeat of the US, seemingly backtracking a policy to cut Iran’s oil exports to zero. However, the Secretary of State Mike Pompeo continues to play the famous US mantra, “maximum pressure” campaign will continue and that the administration hopes to get to zero. The waivers were granted to countries that “need a little bit more time,” he said. 

I am also obliged to refer to what has been said by Professor Frank N. von Hippel, former assistant director for national security in the White House Office of Science and Technology. He said that it was a terrible mistake for the Trump Administration to pull the US out of the agreement between the P5+1+EU and Iran, commonly referred as Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

“The US has lost credibility with the other permanent members of the UN Security Council, Germany and the EU”. He also warned, “If Iran reacts by ending its own compliance with the JCPOA, we might be on a path to war. The US does not need another unnecessary and costly war”.