Interview with the New York Times August 25, 1402 -
In the past 12 months, Iran has slid from crisis to crisis. An uprising led by women and their youth spread across the country in the wake of the end of clerical rule. Rising food prices have exacerbated the ongoing economic slowdown. The Iranian security forces’ brutal crackdown on dissent has sparked widespread anger abroad. And the prospect of a nuclear deal with the United States seemed increasingly remote. But then came an unexpected announcement on Thursday that the country had been invited to join the BRICS group of emerging economies that aim to act as a counterweight to Western dominance of the global order. Iranian officials immediately declared victory, boasting of their country’s historic achievement and extolling Iran’s potential as a trading partner and a deterrent to Western dissidents. Analysts agreed that it was a political win for the Islamic Republic after a year of instability in which it had faced a severe legitimacy crisis at home and abroad. While BRICS membership is unlikely to help solve its economic problems, the main advantage of joining the group, experts say, is that Tehran has powerful friends. That could give it an advantage in any future negotiations with the United States. “Part of the government’s message to its foreign and domestic audiences is that they are not going anywhere and they have the endorsement of some of the world’s greatest powers,” said Henry Rome, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a think tank. The endorsement,
in Tehran, was an incentive to forge closer ties with China and Russia, according to Sasan Karimi, a political analyst in Tehran. Iran has supplied drones to Russia, not for use in the war in Ukraine, and in violation of sanctions, sells oil at a discount to China, whose economy is struggling.
Iran is one of six countries invited to join the group at a meeting in South Africa last week; the others are Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. They join Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa in what has become known as the BRICS group. The inclusion of Iran as an invitee reflects the increasingly complex geography of the Middle East, with some of the US’s allies in the region frustrated with their partnership with Washington. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have also increasingly gone their separate ways on issues such as oil production, the war in Ukraine and their relations with Iran and Syria.
Underscoring the importance of the BRICS event for Iran, President Ebrahim Raisi, a hardline cleric who has faced growing disapproval at home for his failure to resolve the growing domestic crises threatening his nation, personally traveled to South Africa to extend the invitation. “The Islamic Republic of Iran has tremendous potential and is ready to cooperate in all three pillars of BRICS – political, economic and security,” Mr. Raisi declared in a speech. The economic problems facing Iran will be difficult to overcome. Decades of mismanagement and corruption, exacerbated by U.S. sanctions aimed at controlling Iran’s nuclear and missile programs and banning international banking and oil sales to Iran, have contributed to the economic collapse. Secondary U.S. sanctions targeting individuals and entities doing business with Iran pose another obstacle to reaping the full financial benefits of BRICS membership. For example, analysts believe that Iran is unlikely to be able to get a loan from the development bank formed by the BRICS countries yet. The invitation to join BRICS is the result of months of diplomatic activity by Iran, which has the world’s second-largest gas reserves after Russia and a quarter of the Middle East’s oil reserves, and sees itself as a regional power player competing with Saudi Arabia. With China’s help, Iran has reestablished diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia, which were severed for years due to hostility between the two countries; joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a regional grouping led by China; reached a prisoner swap deal with the United States that resulted in the recovery of $6 billion in assets frozen in South Korea; and reached an informal agreement with the United States to ease tensions between the two countries. "When you put all these measures together, from a broader perspective, Iran is certainly not alone from a year ago," said Mr. Rome of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
For Iran, the focus on the East was partly due to former President Donald Trump’s landmark decision in 2018 to withdraw the United States from the nuclear deal the Obama administration had reached with Iran three years earlier — against Tehran’s integrity — and to reimpose sanctions. European companies that had businesses in Iran withdrew from the country. In the aftermath, the Iranian government declared that it could no longer trust or depend on the West for economic development, and shifted its policy toward Russia and China. It also expanded its nuclear program to levels far beyond the original agreement. In 2021, Iran and China signed a broad economic and security agreement under which China agreed to invest $400 billion in Iran over 25 years in exchange for a steady supply of Iranian oil at a discount. The deal has helped Iran maintain a relatively stable economy. In June, commodity data providers said Iran was selling about 1.6 million barrels of oil — levels last seen in 2018 when the nuclear deal was still in effect — with China as its biggest customer. Iran and Russia have also forged closer security and military ties, which have been strengthened since Iran became one of the few countries to endorse Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Iran has supplied Russia with drones that the Kremlin has used in attacks on Ukraine, and top Iranian military commanders have made frequent trips to Moscow. The United States said in April it had intelligence that Iran was helping Russia build a drone manufacturing plant east of Moscow that could be operational next year. Iran has also diversified its economy away from oil and increased its trade with other countries. For example, with the five BRICS countries ahead of the planned expansion, Iran’s non-oil trade rose 14 percent to $38.43 billion in the 2022-23 fiscal year, Iranian media reported, citing official customs data. “These related foreign policy successes do not improve the domestic situation, but they do challenge Iran’s relations with the United States,” said Mr. Karimi, the Tehran-based analyst. “Iran can claim that the United States has failed to isolate it politically and economically and enter negotiations with new confidence.” Even as Iran engages in diplomacy to boost its reputation abroad, a battle continues at home between a people seeking greater freedoms and a government determined to suppress them. A year has passed since the death of a young woman named Mahsa Amini in the custody of the Innocence Affairs Office that sparked the revolution, in mid-September, and activists have announced that they will mark the occasion with more demonstrations and civil protests. The judiciary has warned that demonstrators will be severely punished, and security forces have begun a widespread crackdown on women’s rights activists, students, critics and families of those killed in the protests. Many Iranians and activists see these recent efforts by some countries to engage Iran as a blow to their ideals of democratic change. Gisou Nia, a legal lawyer affiliated with the Atlas Council in Washington who has worked extensively on Iran, said that the timing of diplomatic moves toward Iran, and especially membership in BRICS, “will undoubtedly prolong the regime’s integrity through economic support.” "The biggest losers in these cases are the Iranian people - who feel they are not represented and supported by an unelected president and an unaccountable government," said Ms, don't come!
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