The recent gathering of BRICS foreign ministers in Delhi was supposed to be a victory lap for a multipolar world. Instead, the meeting exposed a raw, jagged nerve in the middle of the bloc’s expansion plans. While the group attempts to build a financial architecture capable of challenging the dollar, the old blood feuds of the Middle East have followed the new members into the room. Iran used the platform to launch a scathing verbal assault on the United Arab Emirates, accusing its new partner of working with Israel and the United States to undermine regional security.
This isn't just a diplomatic spat. It is a fundamental threat to the BRICS mission of creating a unified economic front.
When BRICS invited Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE to join, the logic was purely transactional. The group wanted to control a massive share of the world's energy production and create a trade corridor that bypassed Western sanctions. However, the Delhi summit proved that economic logic rarely survives a collision with historical animosity. Iran’s outburst against the UAE highlights a reality the founding members—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—tried to ignore. You can invite rivals to the same table, but you cannot force them to eat together.
The Geopolitical Friction Slowing the New World Order
The Iranian delegation’s decision to use the Delhi stage to target the UAE is a calculated risk. Tehran is signaling that it will not allow the BRICS platform to be used as a shield for nations it perceives as Western proxies. By bringing the "Abraham Accords" tension into the BRICS boardroom, Iran has effectively stalled the momentum of the bloc’s expansion.
The UAE, for its part, has maintained a disciplined silence, focusing on its role as a global logistics and finance hub. But the damage is done. For India, the host of this specific meeting, the friction is a nightmare. New Delhi has spent years balancing its relationship with Tehran and Abu Dhabi. Watching them bicker on Indian soil undermines India’s ambition to be the "bridge" between the Global South and the West.
This internal warfare makes the prospect of a "BRICS currency" or a unified payment system look like a pipe dream. If two of the largest energy producers in the group cannot agree on basic regional security, they will never trust each other enough to share a financial ledger.
The Dollar Stays Because the Alternatives Are Toxic
The primary objective of BRICS is de-dollarization. Russia and China are desperate to move away from the SWIFT system and the oversight of the U.S. Treasury. They need the Middle Eastern oil giants to trade in local currencies to make this work.
Yet, the instability witnessed in Delhi provides a stark reminder of why the U.S. dollar remains the global reserve. The dollar is backed by more than just an economy; it is backed by a predictable, if sometimes flawed, legal and geopolitical framework. In contrast, the BRICS framework is currently a collection of grievances and competing interests.
Why Energy Security is Now an Internal Risk
Before expansion, BRICS was a group of emerging markets with roughly aligned goals. Now, it is a volatile mix of ideologies.
- Russia wants a war chest to bypass sanctions.
- China wants a captive market for its technology and infrastructure.
- Iran wants a megaphone to attack its regional rivals and Western influence.
- The UAE and Saudi Arabia want to hedge their bets between Washington and Beijing.
When Iran slams the UAE for "colluding" with the West, it isn't just complaining about diplomacy. It is threatening the security of the very trade routes BRICS needs to function. The Strait of Hormuz, the most important oil chokepoint in the world, is the backyard for these two bickering members. If the animosity escalates, the "BRICS advantage" in energy becomes a BRICS liability.
India’s Tightrope Act is Fraying
India finds itself in an impossible position. Prime Minister Modi’s government has marketed India as the leader of the Global South—the sensible, democratic alternative to China’s authoritarian leadership of the bloc. But the Delhi meeting showed that India cannot control the narrative when regional powers decide to settle scores.
The Indian government wants to talk about supply chains and digital public infrastructure. Iran wants to talk about Gaza and the "Zionist entity." This divergence in priorities is making the BRICS meetings increasingly unproductive. While China watches from the sidelines, happy to let the chaos weaken the Western-led order, India is beginning to realize that a larger BRICS might actually be a weaker BRICS.
The Myth of the Unified South
The term "Global South" is used as if it describes a monolithic group of nations with the same goals. It doesn't. The Delhi summit stripped away that illusion. The interests of a rising democratic power like Brazil have almost nothing in common with the survivalist tactics of the Iranian theocracy.
For a global investor, this creates a massive "geopolitical premium." Companies looking to move their manufacturing out of China and into other BRICS nations like India or Brazil now have to account for the fact that the bloc is becoming a theater for proxy wars. If the group cannot manage a simple ministerial meeting without public denunciations, how will they handle a real economic crisis?
The Mechanics of Disruption
The Iranian strategy is clear. By attacking the UAE, Tehran is trying to force a choice. They want the BRICS members to distance themselves from the U.S. influence in the Middle East. It is a "with us or against us" approach that flies in the face of the "multi-alignment" strategy practiced by India and the UAE.
This disruption serves Russia’s interests by keeping the focus on anti-Western sentiment, but it hurts the long-term economic credibility of the group. Institutional investors look for stability. They look for consensus. The Delhi meeting offered neither.
The Problem of Consensus-Based Governance
BRICS operates on consensus. Every member has to agree before a major policy is enacted. With the addition of Iran and the UAE, the likelihood of reaching consensus on anything meaningful—like a shared bank or a trade treaty—has dropped to near zero.
The group is becoming a "talk shop." It provides a great backdrop for photos and a platform for fiery speeches, but the actual work of building a new global financial system is being choked by the very diversity the group claims to celebrate.
The Weaponization of the Platform
We are seeing the weaponization of multilateral organizations. Just as the West has used the G7 to project its values, Iran is attempting to use BRICS to project its regional dominance. This is a departure from the original BRIC concept, which was focused on growth rates and GDP projections.
The original vision was an economic powerhouse. The current reality is a political battleground.
If the UAE continues to be targeted within the group, they may decide that the benefits of BRICS membership don't outweigh the diplomatic headaches. If a major player like the UAE exits or becomes a silent partner, the entire project of Middle Eastern integration into the bloc fails. This would leave BRICS as nothing more than a Sino-Russian vehicle, losing the "Global South" legitimacy it desperately craves.
Accountability and the Road Ahead
The ministers left Delhi with a joint statement that likely used all the right buzzwords about cooperation and mutual respect. But those words ring hollow. The real story was the tension in the hallways and the biting rhetoric in the press briefings.
BRICS is at a crossroads. It can either develop a mechanism to resolve internal conflicts, or it can continue to expand and risk becoming a bigger, louder, and more useless version of the UN General Assembly.
The markets are watching. Every time a member uses a BRICS meeting to settle a personal score, the dream of a non-Western financial hegemony dies a little more. The bloc’s biggest enemy isn't the U.S. Treasury or the IMF. It is the inability of its own members to put their grievances aside for the sake of the collective's goals.
The next few months will determine if the UAE chooses to retaliate or if India can broker a fragile peace. But the veneer of unity has been shattered. The hard truth is that the BRICS expansion has imported the very instability it was supposed to hedge against. Unless the group finds a way to muffle the regional firebrands, their ambitious plans for a new world order will remain nothing more than a series of angry press releases.
