BRICS Gathers in New Delhi as War in Iran Exposes the Bloc’s Fault Lines
India is hosting the BRICS Leaders’ Summit in New Delhi from Saturday, and the meeting arrives with a sharp question hanging over the room: can
India is hosting the BRICS Leaders’ Summit in New Delhi from Saturday, and the meeting arrives with a sharp question hanging over the room: can the bloc speak with one voice while war in Iran keeps pulling its members apart?
The gathering on September 12-13 is meant to lift BRICS’ profile. Instead, it comes after months of conflict that have strained the grouping’s claim to unity, with Iran — a BRICS member since 2024 — under attack and then striking back, while the United Arab Emirates, also admitted in 2024, sits on the other side of the divide.
Consensus under pressure
This is the third attempt by the group to find common ground on a war that has dominated global attention and hit economies around the world. The latest round of talks comes more than six months after the US and Israel launched attacks on Iran. The war has not only redrawn regional alignments. It has also tested the usefulness of BRICS as a platform for countries that want more room to maneuver in a world still shaped by Western power.
Russian President Vladimir Putin landed in New Delhi on Friday morning for the summit. India, which is hosting the meeting, wants BRICS to look like more than a talking shop. But the split over Iran shows how difficult that will be when members face different security concerns and different relationships with Washington.
A broader test for the bloc
BRICS began as a grouping of major emerging economies — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — and has since expanded. The appeal has long been political as much as economic: a chance for middle powers to bargain harder in a world many leaders describe as dominated by the West.
That idea has gained fresh traction as global rivalries sharpen, but the summit in New Delhi underlines its limits. Multipolarity can give countries more choices. It does not guarantee agreement. And when a member is under fire, while another member stands on the opposite side, the bloc’s unity quickly looks fragile.
The coming hours will show whether BRICS can produce even a minimal common line on Iran, or whether its leaders will leave New Delhi with the same divisions they brought in. For a grouping that wants to shape the global conversation, that may be the clearest test yet.
