Iran a member of BRICS?

ivanotter

What if Iran had been admitted into the BRICS group (Brazil, Russia, India, China and SA)?

Iran, after all, is having some sort of democracy and the economy could be compared to other BRICS members.

China: GDP: 16,149 trillion, 11,868 per capita
Russia: GDP 3,6 trillion, 24,764 per capiuta
Iran: GDP: 974 bn, 12,478 per capita
Brazil: GDP 2,2 trillion, 11,080 per capita
SA: GDP 683, 12,722 per capita
India: GDP 7,27 trillion, 1,625 per capita

Compared to Germany:
GDP 3,338 trillion, 41,248 per capita

SA got admitted in 2011.

What if Iran had been admitted in 2011 as well?

BRIICS would then cover Americas, ME, Africa, Europe (sort of), and Asia.

What could Iran offer BRIICS?

markets? Finance? technology (Iran is not backward at all in that field)?

Ivan
 

Ivir Baggins

If Iran didn't have sanctions hanging over their heads then they'd likely be in the BRIICS, so get rid of the sanctions somehow and you have a deal.

But good luck with that. It'd require at minimum no nuclear program, plus less overt "death to Israel" most likely. Having Bush not lump them in the "Axis of Evil" would probably help.
 
anotherlurker

anotherlurker

iran is part of the "next eleven" group together with mexico, turkey, indonesia and others.

if it joins brics the group would need a new name - cant have two "i" in brics.
 

Blackfox5

BRIC was just a marketing term created by Goldman Sachs in 2001 to classify four large developing economies. The term was used simply to provide an easy acronym to communicate that there were investment opportunities in these large emerging markets.

Later, the heads of these countries decided it might make sense to use their emerging clout collectively in order to arrange the global economic and financial system to their better advantage. They later invited South Africa to their meeting to make BRICS. If not for the term coined by Goldman Sachs, this group of countries would likely have never gotten together.

These 4-5 countries that have little in common except that they were large economies growing fast. Even the reasons for their economic growth was different. China was increasing manufacturing. India mostly services. Russia had an oil boom and was recovering from the post-Soviet collapse. Brazil was mainly exporting commodities. South Africa is simply the largest economy in a region not previously covered.

BRICS are not an alliance, economic bloc, or anything else. It's just a formal name for a very informal group. As such, it is somewhat meaningless to discuss adding Iran to the group.

Goldman Sachs wouldn't because Iran wasn't a fast growing emerging market. The other countries they could have potentially grouped would have been Mexico and South Korea, not India.

The BRICS countries themselves would be reluctant to associate that name with a pariah country. Even if they did, what would it give them? Nothing. If they are looking for increased economic clout, there is no reason to include Iran. If you are trying to transform BRICS into some sort of political club, including Iran would divided the countries, not unite them.

It is possible that the BRICS may form some sort of OECD like organization. Most likely, it will fall apart in the next decade or so as their talking heads summits make less sense to hold. The countries are too different with few common goals. India and Brazil are likely to become integrated into the Western based financial system as they become more developed and get greater clout in existing institutions like the IMF. Russia has basically killed its own economic growth potential is just a petro-state dependent on oil revenue. China will probably be the most confrontational of the BRICS states to the current economic system, but I think its ability to turn BRICS into a long term forum for Chinese economic expansion is limited.

As more countries become industrialized or developed, power will shift from the existing economic powers (G7, EU), but this is likely to be a fairly natural process. Terms like BRIC, BRICS, Next Eleven, MINT, CIVETS, etc. are best kept as investor lingo not signs of geopolitical alliances.
 

MattII

Blackfox5 said:
The BRICS countries themselves would be reluctant to associate that name with a pariah country.
Click to expand...
You have Russia, China and South Africa in the group, sticking Iran in as well won't make much difference to the 'villain quotient'.
 
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Opunium

Opunium

MattII said:
You have Russia, China and South Africa in the group, sticking Iran in as well won't make much difference to the 'villain quotient'.
Click to expand...

South Africa is villian? Even though the truth is very different, everybody seems to view it as the Rainbow Mandela utopia.
 

MattII

I've had neighbours from there, and they view it as just short of a failed state. Okay, maybe that's not as bad as a pariah state, but as Blackfox5 states, it's just a name for a group of countries with growing economies, nothing about politics in there.
 

General Tirpitz

MattII said:
I've had neighbours from there, and they view it as just short of a failed state.
Click to expand...

As our South African members have often repeated in this forum, that's not true. It seems to be a common opinion among the certain segment of South African emigrants though.
 

MattII

Where are out South African members from? If they're from posh areas them of course they're going to have a different view of life to those from rough areas.
 

Richard V

BRIC did start out as a term coined by Goldman, but it's now emerged as a real political group because these countries mutually benefit from pooling their soft power, as we've seen with the New Development Bank. South Africa doesn't really belong there given it's much smaller economy, but it does bring a lot of softpower to the table as it adds the voice of Sub-Saharan Africa.

What softpower does Iran have? It doesn't speak for the Middle East or Islamic world, in fact it's widely despised by them for being a Shiite state. There is no single Middle Eastern country that can speak for the region, not to mention the region itself is headed into strategic irrelevance with the on going Sunni Shiite civil war and rise of alternative energies. The future of the Middle East is getting ever bleaker, whereas the image of BRICS is meant to be synonymous with "the rise of the rest".
 

ivanotter

BRICS is indeed changing.

As pointed out, the BRICS bank will be reality, the political alignment is reality.

SA being a part of it might be a more sustainable entry into the greater Africa, especially for China and Russia.

SA is busy with a nuclear deal with Russia which might not have happened if BRICS were not there.

So, BRICS is reality.

Iran is a different one. Yes, it is not the entry into ME. Religion is different, Iran is not Arabic, etc etc

But Iran is a big country which somehow still has clout.

The santcions against Iran is a sticky point, so let us try to look at that.

Iran must turn away from military use of nuclear research. That is happening (sort of and in stop-start mode).

It looks as though Obama is keen on getting Iran into a solution on Syria and presumable IS.

IF Iran decides to be a part of the world and makes the right moves, what wold stop Iran from being a part of BRIICS?

It is a balance to have Iran as the focus point for the Muslim ME world vs the Arabic ME world.

I do believe that Iran is too big to be left alone.

SA is not a failed state. I am sitting in the middle of Johannesburg in a normal middle-class area and have to go to the shopping mall, which btw has a turn-over comparable to the entire Zambian GDP.

One province (Gauteng), slightly smaller than New Jersey, accounts for 9% of the entire continents GDP.

BMW, VW, Toyota still produce cars here (all right-steering BMW 3 series for the world are done here).

... and so on. No, it is not a failed state

Ivan
 

CthulhuFhtagn

Banned
Honestly, South Africa shouldn't even be part of BRICS in the first place. Iran shouldn't be part of the organization either. The combined GDP of those two countries is still smaller than that of the 4th largest BRIC member. Indonesia is a much better choice, since it's the 10th-largest economy in the world.
 

ivanotter

I have to admit that SA is not really a 'brick' , more like a 'briquette'.

It is a political move to also get Africa onboard.

That said, SA might still be the entry into Africa and can make sense.

Iran is a different one. It is too big to be left alone, but not big enough to command the same respect as a China/India/...

It is not really an entry into ME either, but it still influences it by its presence.

Letting Iran be a part of the BRICS might stabilise the ME. And that will also be a political consideration.

Ivan
 

CthulhuFhtagn

Banned
ivanotter said:
I have to admit that SA is not really a 'brick' , more like a 'briquette'.

It is a political move to also get Africa onboard.

That said, SA might still be the entry into Africa and can make sense.

Iran is a different one. It is too big to be left alone, but not big enough to command the same respect as a China/India/...

It is not really an entry into ME either, but it still influences it by its presence.

Letting Iran be a part of the BRICS might stabilise the ME. And that will also be a political consideration.

Ivan
Click to expand...

I agree that South Africa was only allowed to join to help influence Africa, but I'm not seeing how Iran is too big to be left alone. If we're using the criteria that it can't be a US-allied state, then Indonesia makes a lot more sense, since it's twice as large in terms of population and GDP.

And getting an entry into the Middle East just sounds like trouble, given how chaotic it is at the moment.
 
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