What the ongoing state of the Iran war tells us about BRICS, the SCO and other champions of multipolarity

In the past several years, there has been glowing confidence among many in the Opposition to U.S. global hegemony over the prospects of a fairer, multipolar world being ushered in by BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and other new institutions rallying the Global South. We have heard how the GDP readings as well as the population readings of BRICS now outweigh by far the readings of the G7, as if this says something about the Hard Power of the Global South. We have heard how the world is de-dollarizing, how the days of U.S. economic dominance are coming to an end. And these messages have been trumpeted not just by the likes of you and me, but by globally respected and listened to authorities like Jeffrey Sachs and John Mearsheimer, who command audiences of hundreds of thousands every time they open their mouths. Some less respectable but also widely followed commentators on leading youtube channels speak regularly of the imminent collapse of NATO, of the European Union and of other villainous institutions that support the present unjust world order.

I have sympathy for what they are wishing for but harsh criticism for those who ignore the facts, which especially now in circumstances of the Iran war tell a very different story, which is also backed up by the U.S. seizure of Venezuela at the start of the year and by the utter impunity of Israel and the USA in the Gaza genocide extending back more than two years already. The latest events in the US-Israeli attack on Iran demonstrate that BRICS, the SCO count for nothing in global geopolitics. Indeed, the U.S. tariff wars under Trump have deftly and almost effortlessly torn BRICS apart as regards commercial relations with Russia.

I have been saying for some time that the ONLY effective force on the global stage against U.S. unipolarity and for some incoming form of multipolarism has been Russia in its hot war against the U.S. and NATO in and over Ukraine. The outcome of this fight is still unclear due to Vladimir Putin’s refusal to do what he must, namely to deliver a coup de grâce strike on Ukraine that kills Zelensky, his entourage and a good part of the Ukrainian political elite in downtown Kiev.

The Chinese leadership, for its part, has shown itself to be at least as risk-averse and ineffectual as a counter to U.S. power as is Russia. Where is China today in the Iran war? Seemingly nowhere, whereas economically they are the most interested country in the world in Iran’s retaining sovereignty and continuing to be China’s single biggest oil supplier. Also note at this point the decades-long resistance of Beijing to increasing its imports of oil and gas from Russia via secure overland routes. Where is the implementation of Power of Siberia II pipeline? Nowhere! Yes, we heard how China did not want any single supplier to account for more than 15% of its import requirements. BUT surely it allowed Iran to exceed that limit by far and its attempt to reach balance of suppliers at the expense of Russia has turned out to be colossally stupid in light of the closure of the Straits of Hormuz presently.

In last night’s Vladimir Solovyov talk show on Russian state television, the full consensus of the panelists was that the Iran war is another demonstration that every country stands or falls by itself. No one, not China nor Russia is intervening to save Iran, as so many of my starry-eyed colleagues were predicting. The Russians are fully absorbed in the go-slow war of attrition against Ukraine and the Chinese probably have little of value militarily, given the utter failure of their latest air defense gear shipped to Iran and given their latest purge of their highest military officers.

There are no alliances worthy of mention among those opposed to U.S. domination except the alliance between Russia and North Korea which is truly actionable and will likely result in the coming days in delivery of tens of thousands of fresh Korean troops to fight in the war on Ukraine in Ukraine, not just to help defend Russian oblasts from Ukrainian attack as happened in Kursk last year. Their invitation, as mercenaries in fact, signify Russia’s formal recognition that this is an international war, not just Russia’s war. But with this exception, Russia’s only friends are, as emperor Alexander III noted, its army and its fleet.

Recognition of the fiction of BRICS, the SCO and Russian-Chinese military cooperation as active geopolitical forces threatening U.S. power are not just my private musings. You can be sure they are the working assumptions of what Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and his staff use to plan their military operations. Of course, they have a blind spot of vast proportions: they continue to underappreciate true Russian military capabilities. This is so because of the now unforgivable restraint of Putin and his failure to follow the logic of ‘use it or lose it.’ However, Putin will not be there for forever and a day; his successors will be far less restrained and far more effective in defending the country. They will not forgive or forget the present humiliations at the hands of the U.S. that Putin is allowing. Russian state television last night denounced Gorbachev for ‘treason,’ yes, treason, for the way that he withdrew Soviet forces from Eastern Europe and disbanded the Warsaw Pact without demanding the full dissolution of NATO in response.

Let me be perfectly clear: all of the panelists on the Solovyov show last night were biting their tongues. The logic of their remarks was that the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran shows that there should be no constraints on Russian military action in Ukraine. They just held back saying the obvious: that Putin’s conduct of the war is dead wrong.

Yes, there is opposition to Vladimir Vladimirovich and it is becoming ever more open, even if it does not as yet say on state television all that it thinks. Solovyov’s panelists have little doubt that WWIII has already begun and that is loosening lips.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2026