Iran Has Friends, but Where Are They Now?
Advertise Here
A police station that was destroyed by U.S.-Israeli airstrikes in Tehran.Credit...Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times
Iran Has Friends, but Where Are They Now?
NY Times
Despite long being treated as a pariah by the West and isolated by U.S. sanctions, Iran’s revolutionary Islamic government maintained diplomatic, commercial and military ties with a range of countries.
Turkey and India engaged with it on trade and security. China looked to it for cheap oil. North Korea, Venezuela and Russia considered it an ally in their struggle against the West and conspired with it to develop military technology and subvert sanctions.
Now that Iran finds itself under attack by the United States and Israel, those friends, neighbors and partners have little more than words to offer the Islamic Republic. They, in turn, could become targets. Turkey on Wednesday said NATO shot down a ballistic missile fired from Iran that was headed for Turkish airspace. On Thursday, Iran denied it had targeted Turkey.
Without true allies, it is a lonely war for Iran.
That is a product, experts say, of Iran’s foreign policy, which has shied away from commitments to other countries while investing in militias that share its religiously-fueled hatred of the United States and Israel.
Those militias can’t help Iran now. The most formidable of them, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, have been ground down by wars with Israel. The Houthi militia in Yemen and Iraqi armed groups backed by Iran can target ships in the Red Sea or American forces in Iraq. But such attacks are unlikely to change the course of a war inside Iran.
Nor have Iran’s relationships with other states resulted in concrete support, even from those united by their animosity toward what they consider Western imperialism.
“It is a rude wake-up call for those who believed that there was an emergent anti-West axis,” said Sinan Ulgen, a former Turkish diplomat and the director of Edam, an Istanbul-based think tank.
Referring to Russia, China, Iran and North Korea, he said, “Now you see that it means nothing for one of those four countries when they are under siege by the West.”
Most countries that maintain ties with Iran do so out of strategic, geographic or economic necessity, giving them little reason to sacrifice when Iran comes under fire, experts said.
Now, those relationships may not protect them.
Turkey’s defense ministry did not specify the target of the ballistic missile from Iran that NATO defenses shot down on Wednesday. But a senior U.S. military official and a Western official said it was aimed at Incirlik Air Base in southern Turkey, which houses a U.S. Air Force contingent and other NATO forces. Debris from the munitions that brought the missile down fell about 30 miles from the base. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to journalists.
The Iranian military denied in a statement on Thursday that it had fired a missile at Turkey, saying it respected Turkey’s sovereignty.
Turkey shares a 300-mile border with Iran, has longstanding standing diplomatic and trade ties and also tried to fend off the war.
Mr. Ulgen, the former diplomat, characterized Turkey’s approach to Iran as rooted in history and driven by proximity and “grudging respect.”
Read more on original:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/05/world/middleeast/iran-turkey-india-russia.html
US submarine sinks Iranian warship with torpedo, as Pentagon says it will strike ‘deeper into Iran’ 
Israel launches new strikes on Iran as US identifies first American soldiers killed in conflict 
Iran war fallout: Shock-hit economy rattles policymakers 
War with Iran expands across region; U.S. expects more casualties 
Iranian president says new leadership council ‘has begun its work’ after death of supreme leader 
Oil Shipments in Persian Gulf Already Disrupted by Iran Attack