NOURNEWS- Since taking office in 2021, Ayatollah Ebrahim Raisi, the president of Iran, has prioritized improving relations with the country’s neighbors as well as Asian powers. Since the day one of the Mr. Raisi’s administration, The BRICS membership was a political feather in his administration’s cap, Iran’s membership in this rising alliance – which is based on a multipolar world order in face of the deteriorating unilateral world order led by the US and its western allies - has made the argument that Iran can thrive without focusing on nuclear diplomacy by expanding ties with Asia and the region. The invitation to join the BRICS bloc coincided with an America and European effort to isolate Tehran until it reengages on its advancing nuclear program.
Indeed, the membership invitation underscores the erosion of Western efforts to isolate Iran, which in turn will probably make future endeavors at nuclear diplomacy even more challenging.
Under president Raisi, Tehran has sought new economic partners—from Venezuela to Indonesia —to offset the impact of US economic sanctions over Iran’s economy, which were reimposed after Donald Trump withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018. Iran’s invitation to join BRICS followed its admission to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in July 2023.
Why Iran’s membership in BRICS is important?
To answer the above question, we must review this matter from different perspectives:
First, from domestic and internal standpoint; Iran is the second-highest sanctioned country in the world – before the Ukraine war, and imposition of massive sanctions against Russia, Iran was the most sanctioned country in the world – and in contrary to what the western governments try to induce, sanctions have targeted Iranian’s livelihoods, sanctioned have made Iranian’s access to medicine and other essential items for living much harder.
Sanctions have always played a role in Western unilateral world order, and the collective west has always used its unilateral actions to try to impose its will against free countries in the world. But with full membership of Iran in the BRICS, SCO and ever-expanding relations of the country with its neighbors and free countries of the world, the sanctions will lose their effect little by little to the point that west can no longer try to bully the country and must face its actions’ consequences, which is the destruction of the current unilateral world order and the creation of a new multipolar and just world order in line with the world’s demand of this change.
Furthermore, Iran’s accession to the SCO, becoming a member of BRICS, is a political win for Tehran. It is concrete evidence that Western governments are failing to isolate the country.
Now, we must examine the matter at hand from an international perspective; At the time when Iran’s full membership in BRICS was announced – Johannesburg summit, which was held on 22-24 August 2023 in South Africa - Chinese President Xi Jinping hailed the BRICS expansion as “historic” and promised to “further strengthen the force for world peace and development.” Russian President Vladimir Putin, who did not attend the said summit in-person, pledged to continue “expanding the influence of BRICS in the world.” BRICS is increasingly visible both in international diplomacy and economics. It brings together some of the world’s largest oil and gas importers and exporters.
The United States downplayed the implications of BRICS expanding. The Biden administration did not consider BRICS “as evolving into some kind of geopolitical rival to the United States or anyone else,” White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters on Aug. 22, 2023.
Nearly two dozen countries applied for BRICS membership before the 2023 summit in Johannesburg. Tehran had applied in June 2022. Iran and the other 4 countries of Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates are due to become members on Jan. 1, 2024. (At the time, Argentina was also chosen to join the BRICS, but Argentina’s President-elect Milei has declined this invitation.)
Brazil, Russia, India, and China formed the first iteration of the group (BRIC) in 2009 and then added South Africa in 2010. Together, the five nations represented approximately a quarter of the world’s economy and more than 40 percent of the world’s population on four continents. Now, with its new entrants, the bloc will represent over $30 trillion in GDP or around 29% of the world’s GDP. Even with its new members, BRICS falls short of the G7’s 43% share of global GDP. However, the gap is likely to shrink as major BRICS nations such as India continue to grow at above-average rates—and as the group likely welcomes even more members in the future.
With the addition of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Iran, BRICS more than doubles its members’ share of global oil production to 43%. And due to the raging war in Gaza and world’s fear of a regional conflict in the West Asia, the price of oil will keep on rising and give more power to Iran, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Russia as 4 of the main producers and exporters of oil, gas and energy as a whole.
Furthermore, the ever-rising voice of world’s demand for a new world order has become an existential danger against the US-led world order due to Washington’s staunch support of Zionist regime’s genocide in Gaza. Meanwhile, head states of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) have voiced their anger and disgust with the Israeli regime and its genocidal war in Gaza. So even in a political and humane values, BRICS and its member countries are more in lined with the public opinion of the world, and the western countries have forgotten that the real power is a power backed by the people.
With above explanations, we can conclude that Iran’s official membership in the BRICS will help to further lessen the influence of imposed sanctions over its economy, will bolster the country’s political and soft power even more than before, will deepen the current existing relations between Beijing, Moscow and Tehran as the three main architects of the new world order, will help Iran to expand its bilateral relations to other regions of the world even more easily than now. And, Iran’s official in this bloc is a testament to West’s failure in its economic war against Tehran and their mounting defeat in the global level as the leaders of the current unilateral world order.
BY: Homayoun Barkhor
NOURNEWS