This partnership is not merely a transactional alliance of convenience; it is a complex and multifaceted relationship with a long and fraught history. Over the course of the past 20 years, Russia and Iran have espoused shared perspectives on many global issues and affairs. The two countries are first tied by a shared animosity with the “collective West,” whose values and strategic objectives present, according to their perspective, a hostile ideological challenge that can endanger their social cohesion and political stability.
Russia and Iran also share a common concern for regime survival. They both have faced internal upheaval and international sanctions that have led them to develop mirror narratives centered around resilience, self-sufficiency, and resistance. This has drawn the two states closer.
Unwilling to counter this partnership militarily, Western countries have implemented policies including sanctions, economic decoupling, and diplomacy to isolate these two countries. Commentators and officials characterize Iran and Russia as “pariah states” to the West. However, declaring Russia and Iran “pariahs” and isolating them economically will not necessarily make them so. Since the early 2000s, Iran and Russia have worked in tandem to build a global network of solidarity with countries similarly distanced from Western powers, such as Venezuela, Syria, and North Korea, which has contributed to their resilience.
warontherocks.com/2023/07/iran-russia-and-the-challenges-of-inter-pariah-solidarity/