The Munich Security Conference (MSC) 2025, held from February 14 to 16, once again served as a stage for dissecting global security challenges. Dominating this year’s agenda were the looming second Trump administration, the U.S.-China rivalry, NATO and transatlantic security, and the Russia-Ukraine war.

Speeches by high-profile figures –including U.S. Vice President JD Vance, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi– underscored the fractures in the Western alliance and Washington’s waning enthusiasm for global leadership. The dramatic moment of Christoph Heusgen, President of the Munich Security Conference, struggling to hold back tears during his closing speech, symbolized the perceived erosion of Western strength, particularly in the defense sector.

For Tehran, such developments are welcome news. They reinforce Iran’s longstanding narrative that the Western-led order is crumbling and that multipolarity is emerging as a new geopolitical reality. Indeed, the very concept of multipolarization –a recurring theme in this year’s Munich Security Report– has gained traction among Iranian policymakers as they search for opportunities in a shifting world order.

For Iran’s ruling elites, the diminishing influence of the United States and Europe signifies an inevitable redistribution of power from the West to the East. More crucially, they perceive a declining Western capacity to contain Iranian ambitions and undermine the Zionist regime’s influence in the Middle East. This belief is rooted in Iran’s historical disenchantment with the unipolar, liberal international order –a system from which Tehran argues it has never benefited. Iranian strategists contend that a multipolar framework, where power is more evenly distributed, would allow Iran greater strategic autonomy and economic opportunities outside Western-imposed constraints.

In practical terms, Iran has taken several steps in anticipation of this multipolar shift, including joining the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and BRICS to strengthen ties with China and Russia, as well as seeking to improve relations with Arab states, particularly Saudi Arabia, within a framework of regional diplomacy. Yet, Iran’s efforts to reposition itself within a multipolar order face serious structural challenges. Tehran remains diplomatically constrained, economically fragile, and strategically isolated –realities that multipolarity alone cannot resolve.

Iran’s diplomatic outreach to Gulf Arab states has been widely celebrated as a breakthrough in its regional policy. However, the notion that this rapprochement will translate into substantive economic or political integration remains deeply flawed. Regional analysts argue that Iran lacks the economic capacity to truly engage with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, whose financial resources and investment potential far exceed Tehran’s own capabilities. Iran’s infrastructure is ill-equipped to absorb Gulf capital, and its rigid economic model offers little incentive for foreign investors.

More significantly, Iran and the GCC operate under starkly different geopolitical and economic visions. While GCC states prioritize economic modernization and global integration, Iran remains committed to revolutionary resistance, anti-Western rhetoric, and asymmetric warfare tactics. Absent a paradigm shift in Iranian foreign policy, diplomatic normalization will not extend beyond tactical maneuvers and a superficial détente without economic depth or security guarantees.

Iran’s pivot to the East has also yielded underwhelming results. Though Iran has rhetorically embraced Russia and China as counterweights to Western dominance, it has failed to establish genuine strategic partnerships with either power. Instead, multipolarity has exacerbated Iran’s dependence on these actors without securing meaningful reciprocity.

Moscow and Beijing have consistently placed their own strategic priorities above Tehran’s, often sidelining Iran at critical geopolitical junctures. Following the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024, Iranian military commanders publicly accused Russia of undermining Tehran’s position in Syria, exposing a widening rift between the two supposed allies. Likewise, during the Vienna Talks (2021–2022), Russia derailed negotiations on reviving the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) by demanding additional guarantees from Washington, effectively disregarding Iran’s economic predicament. Meanwhile, the much-publicized $400 billion China-Iran strategic partnership (2021) has failed to yield the expected investments, with Beijing prioritizing economic ties with U.S.-aligned Gulf states over deeper engagement with Tehran.

The latest evidence of Iran’s peripheral status in the multipolar system emerged in January 2025, when Chinese oil refiners increased crude purchases from Middle Eastern suppliers in anticipation of renewed U.S. restrictions on Iranian oil imports under a second Trump presidency.

For Iran to emerge as a credible player within a multipolar framework, it must first address its structural deficiencies, from economic modernization to technological and diplomatic capacity-building. However, Tehran’s longstanding ideological pillars –absolute independence, exceptionalism, and defiance– continue to undermine its flexibility.

At its core, Iran’s problem is not the structure of the international system; it is the rigidity of its own foreign policy doctrine. Multipolarity, despite its promises, will not break Iran’s isolation unless Tehran redefines its strategic approach. The real test for Iran is not whether the world is unipolar or multipolar—but whether it can adapt to shifting geopolitical realities rather than remaining hostage to its own ideological dogma.