Eve is here. Korybco offers an answer to the headline question that is obvious, but still has to be said. That is “chasing money”. Western sanctions have been successful in isolating Iran economically, so few countries have beneficial trade relations with it, which is in direct contrast to the position of the Gulf states. The United States has succeeded in making Iran largely friendly, with the exception of the great powers Russia and China, and North Korea, which is considered a pariah state.
Andrew Korybko is a Moscow-based American political analyst specializing in the global systemic transition to multipolarity in the new Cold War. He holds a doctorate from MGIMO, which is affiliated with the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Originally published on his website
Given the lack of meaningful economic ties with Iran, it was predetermined that most countries would support any resolution against Iran if forced to choose informally between the Islamic Republic and the Gulf states, which are somewhat dependent on energy imports.
The Security Council just recently adopted a resolution condemning Iran’s attacks on Gulf states, including on civilian areas and residential areas, after Russia and China abstained, as they did on the Gaza resolution last fall, citing the support of their Arab partners for these two measures. Russia proposed a second draft, which the Permanent Representative said was “aimed at urgently de-escalating the situation… (and) is simple, direct and unambiguous, deliberately not naming the parties to the conflict.”
Although Russia and China initially felt forced to abstain from the draft as the US vetoed it as expected, this nevertheless showed that Russia had done its best to support Iran in the Security Council. The resolution that was ultimately passed was supported by a whopping 135 countries, which an Al Jazeera correspondent described as “the largest number of countries ever to co-sponsor a draft Security Council resolution.” The reason for this historical condemnation of Iran is very simple.
Simply put, much of the world is dependent to some extent on energy imports from the Gulf states, but Iran offers little to most of the Gulf states, as few countries except China are willing to trade significantly with them against the threat of secondary sanctions from the United States. Iran therefore stands to lose far more from the disruption of Gulf energy exports caused by Iranian attacks on Gulf states than from the joint US-Israeli operation against Iran that is devastating the Islamic Republic.
The international community’s lack of meaningful economic relations with Iran at the start of the Third Gulf War stands in sharp contrast to the relationship it had with Russia at the start of NATO’s proxy war against Iran through Ukraine, which entered its most intense phase four years ago. At the time, and to this day, many of those countries relied to some degree on exports of agricultural products, energy, and fertilizers, so why did they all defy the threat of US secondary sanctions in one way or another?
Even though most of the international community voted in favor of condemning Russia at the UN General Assembly, countries, including the EU, still maintain some level of imports of goods from Russia. They and their US bosses certainly agreed to so-called “price caps” to limit Russian oil profits, but importantly, even they recognized that the world could not continue to function if these exports were immediately cut off. Since then, the US has been trying to keep everyone away from them, but in the midst of the global oil crisis, that is no longer possible.
In any case, this insight allows us to retroactively conclude that the global majority’s defiance of the threat of US secondary sanctions against maintaining trade with Russia was driven by self-interest rather than by a collective commitment to some nebulous multipolar principle. The same is true of why most of them co-sponsored the latest Security Council resolution to condemn Iran at the United Nations, no matter how disappointing some multipolarism enthusiasts may be. This was also in their interest.
After all, it was predetermined that the majority of the world would support any resolution against Iran if forced to choose informally between the Islamic Republic and the Gulf states, which are to some extent dependent on energy imports due to the lack of meaningful economic relations with Iran. This is a cold reality of international relations, and an unpleasant reminder to well-meaning activists who want to change the way the world works that this is easier said than done.
