The Frenemies Who Could Challenge the West’s Sanctions Regime

The BRICS grouping has long been distinguished by a consistent failure to live up to potential. The internal contradictions are crippling: Divergent interests between members make it difficult to develop any shared policies. Brazil, Russia and South Africa are commodity exporters; India and China are importers. Brazil, India and South Africa are democracies; Russia and China only pretend to be. And India and China, as everyone knows, don’t exactly see eye to eye on anything.

This year, the bloc has decided to take the bold step of enhancing those internal divisions manifold by admitting five new members: Ethiopia, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. It was supposed to be six; but Argentina’s new president declared, in his usual restrained manner, that he had no intention of “allying with communists” and so won’t get a second Latin American member. BRICS made up for that by admitting four members from that tranquil zone of stability and co-operation, the Middle East, and a fifth, Ethiopia, that’s barely a year out of a devastating civil war.