Iran is irrelevant no thanks to the disastrous foreign policy of Khamenai Sr who will go down in Iranian history as one of the worst foreign policy leaders Iran has ever had. Iran would have been 10x more successful under Khomeini rule than a Khamenai one and maybe even better under the traitor Rafsanjani.
The fact of the matter is countries support countries they have strong trade with. That is why China is immune to world pressure because too many countries rely on China economically. Compare that to Russia where outside of energy needs, not many countries rely on Russia for major trade needs that cannot be found elsewhere.
Iran has nothing to offer the world in 2026. It doesn’t have a strong memory production facilities like South Korea. It doesn’t have strong semi conductor production like Taiwan. It doesn’t even have enough natural gas left over to be a major LNG exporter. Its population eats it all.
All it has outside of energy is concrete and some crappy cars.
Again people don’t understand to rule in this world you need to be an economic power FIRST and military power SECOND. The economic power will allow you to fund your military expansion. But your military power cannot help fund your economic growth.
Apparently all these PHD carrying technocrats in Iran cannot grasp this basic concept.