In a detailed strategic partnership agreement signed last week in Moscow, Eurasian powers Russia and Iran issued a challenge to the US-led global order and placed its incoming new president on notice.
Pepe Escobar
JAN 20, 2025
Photo Credit: The CradleTiming is everything in geopolitics. This past Friday in Moscow, only three days before the inauguration of US President Donald Trump in Washington, top BRICS member leaders Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian signed a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Agreement, detailed in 47 articles, twice as many as in the recent Russian–North Korean deal.
This strategic partnership is now set in stone just as the – unpayable - humongous debt of the US government reaches an unprecedented $36.1 trillion, equivalent to $106.4k per American, and just as the US share of the global economy falls below 15 percent for the first time, based on World Bank/IMF figures.
In sharp contrast, the Russia–Iran strategic partnership aims to solidify even more the interlocking drive of crucial multilateral organizations driven to organize the new multimodal world: BRICS+, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU).
Call it a landmark moment in the long, ongoing Eurasia integration process. Or, as the Global Majority largely interprets it, a direct, sovereign challenge to the dying, western-imposed “rules-based international order.”
The wide-ranging strategic Tehran–Moscow partnership boosts collaboration in the security and defense realms, and places particular emphasis on the smooth development of the International North-South Transportation Corridor (INSTC), a trans-Eurasia axis uniting Russia, Iran, and India, solidifying Iran as a key transit hub for Russian gas and goods sold to several Afro-Eurasia partners.
Map of the International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC).Rewriting the rules of asymmetric warfare
It’s enlightening to highlight Putin’s own interpretation of the partnership, which he calls a “groundbreaking document” that sets “ambitious goals,” focused on “sustainable development.”
He added that Russia and Iran align on “most” foreign policy issues, are independent nations, and that both civilizational nations “resist external pressure and oppose illegitimate sanctions.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi stressed how the partnership replaces “unilateralism with cooperation and respect,” in a deal meant to provide Iran and Russia with the tools to build “a new order in which cooperation will replace hegemony and respect will replace imposition.”
Now, to some of the nitty-gritty. Although the agreement is not constituted as a formal military alliance, the partnership institutionalizes military exchanges at the highest level – from joint drills and weapons development to intelligence-sharing projects.
Moscow will inevitably sell Sukhoi S-30 fighter jets, Pantsir, Tok, and Buk missiles, and S-400s defense systems (and in the near future, S-500s) for Iranian air defense against possible instances of US–Israel adventurism while buying a vast array of made-in-Iran missiles and drones. Exchanges on Artificial Intelligence research will also be boosted. Both Iran and Russia are on the global frontlines of rewriting the rules of asymmetric warfare.
The partnership stipulates that Russia will provide Iran with “assistance.” In practice, that means not only weapons but also Moscow defending Tehran at the United Nations and other international forces against diplomatic threats and minimizing the effects of disruptive economic sanctions.
And were an attack against Iran to happen, Russia, by all means, will not collaborate with the attacker: no intel to no permission to use Russian territory for raids or incursions.
Energy infrastructure is an essential pillar of the partnership, and will aim to boost Iran's fortunes amid a worsening domestic economy. Russia will provide state-of-the-art energy technologies to develop the vast – but still to be upgraded – Iranian energy infrastructure, pipeline networks, and ever-expanding Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) trade.
On the day of the agreement, Russian Energy Minister Sergei Tsivilev provided new details on a new, 30-year Caspian Sea pipeline deal between Gazprom and the National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC), that will include Azerbaijan, and likely seek to entice Baku away from hostile regional stances. Russia will cover the infrastructure costs, and essentially provide gas to Iran and some of its neighbors.
The projected volume of 55 billion cubic meters a year upon the project's completion happens to compare with the capacity of the twin Nord Stream to the European Union, stealthily sabotaged by the Americans, as veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh revealed in 2022.
This energy deal is essential for Tehran because even if it holds the second-largest gas reserves on the planet – 34 trillion cubic meters, only behind Russia – it suffers from domestic shortages, especially in winter. Most of the country's vast gas reserves are not explored because of decades-old US sanctions.
Improving the “laboratory of the future”
On the geoeconomic front, Russia and Iran are at the center of one of the key connectivity corridors of the 21st century: the INSTC, uniting three BRICS (the other one is India), immune to sanctions, and a seriously faster and cheaper alternative to the once-indispensable Suez Canal.
The other corridor is the Northern Sea Route (NSR) across the Arctic, which the Chinese call the Ice Silk Road, or Polar Silk Road. China defines itself as a “near-Arctic state."
Map of major global shipping routes and alternative Arctic passages including Northwest and Northeast routes.The INSTC is Eurasia integration at its finest, doubling down as a prime BRICS connectivity project. The geoeconomic repercussions are staggering, as the INSTC will be accelerating the process inside BRICS+ of bypassing the US dollar-dominated international financial system.
Russia and Iran are already trading heavily in their own currencies and cryptos while working to perfect a confidential mechanism to totally bypass the Belgium-based global banking messaging system SWIFT. The next step is to configure a Eurasia-wide payment network, which will be tied to an evolving BRICS mechanism, with several options already being discussed and tested at what can only be described as “a laboratory of the future.”
Proverbial imperial hysteria defining the partnership as the new chapter of the new “axis of evil” – with North Korea and China added for good measure – is irrelevant. The geopolitical timing, once again, is priceless – coupled with the blowback against the sanctions dementia.
Dementia, incidentally, will remain intrinsic to the US-led western axis. National Insecurity honcho Jack Sullivan, before his pathetic exit, did suggest to the White House an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites before the start of Trump 2.0 – something that would have immediately plunged the incoming Republican president right into the eye of the hurricane: a massive West Asian war.
The problem is the Zionist ring of fire surrounding Trump is, in fact, inheriting these attack plans from the exiting Biden administration, and they are far from being opposed across the US Deep State; thus, the dementia never stops. Considering the hubris permeating the Empire of Chaos, there will be no gaggle of realists actually understanding the ramifications of the Russia–Iran strategic entente.
The Forever Wars mindset that devastated large swathes of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Gaza, Ukraine, and elsewhere is now being slightly tweaked. Yet, the permanently-employed neocons and neoliberals who have controlled US foreign policy for decades will not vanish. The difference is that now Russia–Iran, in close cooperation, are directly challenging the Empire of Chaos, reloaded. www.fotavgeia.blogspot.com
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