Gillian Schutte and Sipho Singiswa | The Counterhegemon
War reveals the architecture of power faster than diplomacy ever can. As the Gulf conflict expands, Iran’s appeal to BRICS forces a question that the emerging multipolar order has largely avoided. Economic cooperation alone cannot protect states confronting military pressure, sanctions and information warfare. The present crisis exposes the limits of diplomatic neutrality and the unresolved political purpose of BRICS itself.
A recent report in News24 describes Mansour Shakib Mehr, Iran’s Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary in Pretoria, urging South Africa and other BRICS members to condemn Israel and the United States as the Gulf war intensifies.
The appeal places an uncomfortable question before the bloc. BRICS presents itself as a pillar of the emerging multipolar order, yet its political behaviour still resembles that of a cautious economic forum trying to find space inside an imperial security order. That order is not an impartial framework. It is the enemy terrain itself, structured by Atlantic military power, sanctions, proxy warfare and information dominance.
The widening conflict around Iran exposes that contradiction with clarity.
Iran rightly argues that it is responding to armed aggression supported by the United States and Israel. Under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, states possess an inherent right of self-defence if an armed attack occurs against them. Tehran invokes precisely that legal principle when it responds to strikes it attributes to Israel and its allies. Western governments dispute the claim, yet the legal framework itself remains clear: the right of self-defence applies to any state that can demonstrate it has been attacked.
The dispute therefore turns on political power rather than legal theory.
For BRICS this situation presents a strategic dilemma. A bloc that aspires to reshape global governance must determine how it responds when a major Global South state invokes international law to justify military self-defence against Western-backed force. Silence appears prudent in the short term, yet it also signals that the bloc lacks the political instruments required to defend its partners within the existing international order.
The problem becomes clearer when the wider geopolitical landscape is considered. Iran currently faces sustained military pressure from the United States and Israel. Russia confronts a different configuration of the same phenomenon. Since the escalation of the war in Ukraine, Moscow has operated under extensive sanctions while Western governments provide military and intelligence support to Kyiv. The contexts differ, yet both cases illustrate a broader pattern: states that challenge Atlantic strategic dominance increasingly face coordinated pressure without the protection of a collective security structure outside Western alliances.
BRICS has never developed such a structure.
Economic Multipolarity Without Security Power
From its inception the grouping concentrated on economic coordination. The creation of the New Development Bank, discussions around alternative payment systems and debates on currency diversification all addressed financial sovereignty. Security cooperation remained largely informal. The assumption appeared to be that economic multipolarity could gradually reshape the global system without requiring a parallel strategic architecture.
The present crisis challenges that assumption.
Iran’s appeal exposes a further complication inside BRICS itself. India maintains deep strategic and defence ties with Israel, a country currently engaged in direct hostilities with Iran. This alignment is not incidental. Over the past two decades Israel has become one of India’s most significant defence partners. Military technology transfers, intelligence cooperation and joint weapons development form a central part of the relationship.
When one BRICS member maintains close military ties with a state that another member regards as an aggressor, the cohesion of the bloc inevitably comes into question. Strategic ambiguity may sustain diplomacy for a time, yet it also introduces vulnerabilities into any alliance that seeks to operate as a geopolitical counterweight to Western power.
South Africa illustrates another dimension of the problem. Each attempt by Pretoria to deepen relations with Russia, China or Iran generates immediate turbulence within the domestic political environment. Media institutions, donor-funded civil society organisations and policy networks linked to Western foundations frequently frame such engagements as threats to democracy or constitutional order. Foreign policy debates therefore become internal political contests long before any concrete policy shift occurs.
This pattern reveals how hybrid influence operates within states whose political institutions remain intertwined with Western networks of funding, media and governance.
Iran’s request therefore carries implications that extend well beyond a diplomatic statement. It confronts BRICS with a fundamental question about the nature of multipolarity itself. Economic cooperation alone cannot sustain a geopolitical realignment when states face military pressure, sanctions and information warfare.
Multipolarity requires institutional depth. It requires mechanisms capable of coordinating diplomatic protection, strategic communication and security cooperation among member states. Without such instruments the bloc remains vulnerable to external pressure and internal division.
Iran has simply exposed that reality.
The Gulf conflict forces BRICS to confront the limits of its current model. A coalition that represents a large share of the world’s population and economic output cannot indefinitely operate as a loose diplomatic forum while its partners confront military escalation and geopolitical isolation.
At some point the bloc must decide whether it intends to remain a cautious economic partnership or evolve into a political formation capable of defending the sovereignty of states that seek an alternative to the Atlantic order.
Iran’s appeal places that decision squarely before it.
