Opinion | The Iran-UAE Rivalry, And Why Our BRICS Expectations Need To Be Realistic

Updated: Sep 12, 2026 16:40 pm IST Published On Sep 12, 2026 16:38 pm IST Last Updated On Sep 12, 2026 16:40 pm IST

Published On Sep 12, 2026 16:38 pm IST

Last Updated On Sep 12, 2026 16:40 pm IST

The Iran-UAE confrontation has emerged as the most consequential geopolitical stress test for BRICS since its expansion. What was presented as an effort to give greater institutional weight to the Global South has, in 2026, confronted the harder reality of managing deep strategic divergences among a larger and more heterogeneous membership. The crisis has exposed the limits of a consensus-driven model when two full members find themselves on opposing sides of an active conflict.

Iran and the UAE entered the expanded BRICS framework alongside Egypt, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia and, subsequently, Indonesia. Their incorporation brought into the grouping not merely additional economic weight but also the accumulated rivalries of the Middle East. The longstanding Iranian-UAE dispute over Gulf islands and their contrasting regional alignments were already embedded within the bloc. The escalation of the US-Israeli military campaign against Iran from late February 2026, however, transformed these differences from manageable diplomatic divergences into a direct institutional challenge.

Iran's subsequent missile and drone strikes against US bases and other targets in the Gulf, including sites in the UAE, brought the confrontation closer to BRICS' own institutional space. Abu Dhabi's decision in August to suspend trade and financial transactions with Tehran and close its embassy in Iran further hardened the divide. The disruption of the Strait of Hormuz, meanwhile, ensured that the conflict could not be compartmentalised as a bilateral Iranian-UAE dispute. It became an energy, shipping and economic-security crisis with consequences for the wider global economy.

When Consensus Becomes Constraint

The clearest manifestation of the problem has been diplomatic. At the BRICS Foreign Ministers' meeting in New Delhi in May, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi accused the UAE of facilitating or assisting US-Israeli operations, while the UAE rejected the allegations and stressed Iranian attacks against its territory and shipping. The inability to reconcile these positions meant that the grouping could not produce a full joint communiqué. Instead, the chair's statement acknowledged differing views while allowing........

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