Iran finds itself in a direct military confrontation with the US, Israel, France and the UK, a war that has claimed more than 1,300 Iranian lives, including that of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Despite having joined the expanded Brics bloc of 11 emerging economies in 2024, Tehran has received no meaningful military or diplomatic support from its fellow members.
The silence from Moscow, Beijing, New Delhi, Pretoria and Gulf capitals exposes a fundamental miscalculation: Iran mistook Brics for a counter‑hegemonic alliance capable of deterring Western aggression, when in reality it remains a loose economic forum where national interests consistently override solidarity.
The most glaring contradiction lies within the Gulf. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — both US security partners hosting American military bases — are fellow Brics members. When Iran retaliates against US‑Israeli strikes by targeting infrastructure in those Gulf states, it is striking its supposed allies.
No diplomatic communiqué can overcome the fact that Brics members are in effect on opposing sides of the conflict. As one former Indian diplomat noted, the crisis “has exposed the political contradictions within the expanded Brics”.
For other members, economic pragmatism has dictated their distance. South Africa, which in March hosted Brics naval exercises, quietly excluded Iran from active participation after Washington threatened 25% tariffs on any country conducting military co-operation with Tehran.
South African officials asked Iranian vessels to leave the Simon’s Town naval base, calculating trade preferences under the African Growth & Opportunity Act were worth more than a symbolic show of solidarity. That they did not immediately do so is the subject of a defence probe in South Africa.
India, as current Brics chair, faces an equally delicate balancing act. New Delhi has long enjoyed energy and strategic ties with Tehran, but it has also deepened defence and intelligence co-operation with the US. With nearly 10-million Indian citizens living in Gulf states and its energy imports heavily dependent on the Strait of Hormuz, India refrained from criticising the initial US‑Israeli strikes. Its posture reflects a broader reality: when national interests are at stake, bloc loyalties recede.
Russia and China — the two Brics members with the greatest geopolitical weight — objected to the US‑Israeli strikes in carefully worded statements. Moscow called the assassination of Khamenei a “cynical violation of international law”, and Beijing expressed concern. Yet neither has provided military assistance, intervened diplomatically beyond rhetoric, or risked direct confrontation with Washington.
Their posture is one of calculated opportunism. Both benefit from a conflict that drains American resources and weakens US influence in the Middle East, but they are unwilling to pay the cost of Iran’s war. As one analysis noted, their support “is not about ideological solidarity with Iran’s clerical regime. It is about weakening American primacy”.
Iran’s foreign minister has spent weeks pleading with Brics members to act, stressing it is “essential for the institution to play a constructive role”. However, under India’s chairmanship the bloc has failed to issue any joint statement. The official explanation is telling, “Some members of the Brics are directly involved in the current situation”, making consensus impossible.
Recognising its isolation, Iran has abandoned the “strategic patience” that characterised its earlier posture. Its new strategy, framed as “peace through resistance”, rests on self‑reliance and asymmetric warfare. Tehran’s most potent weapon is geography: by partially closing or disrupting the Strait of Hormuz — through which a fifth of the world’s oil passed before the conflict started — Iran aims to make the war economically unsustainable for the West.
The uncomfortable truth Iran’s isolation reveals is about the nature of the emerging multipolar order. It turns out multipolarity does not mean solidarity.
The bet is that rising energy prices and global economic pain will alter Washington’s cost‑benefit calculus more effectively than direct military parity ever could. This approach also relies on non‑state partners — Hezbollah, the Houthis and other “archers on the hill” — to wage a war of attrition designed to outlast American political will. It is not the strategy of a state confident in its alliances, but of a state that has concluded it can count only on itself.
The uncomfortable truth Iran’s isolation reveals is about the nature of the emerging multipolar order. It turns out multipolarity does not mean solidarity. The dissolution of US unipolarity has produced not a coherent alternative structure of mutual obligation, but a landscape where every state calculates its own advantage, and solidarity ends precisely where costs begin.
Brics members will condemn aggression in carefully worded statements, but when the choice is between backing Iran and protecting their own economies, security relationships or access to American markets, they will choose themselves.
For Iran, the lesson is painful. Membership in economic clubs and diplomatic forums provides no shield against military attack. The path forward is one of self‑reliance, a path Iran has walked before under decades of sanctions and isolation. As one Iranian diplomat confessed: “We are alone against the biggest military superpower of history.”
The broader question left unanswered is what purpose institutions such as Brics serve if they cannot find common cause when one of their members is subjected to sustained military assault. That question will be answered by each member in its own time, on its own terms and in its own interest. Meanwhile, Iran continues to fight — alone.
- Ncayiyana, an ANC member in KwaZulu-Natal, is a former member of the South African Students Congress Eastern Cape provincial executive committee.
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