US heg is a failing system that fosters global rifts and enables Iran revisionism.
Azadeh Zamirirad, 24 – Iran researcher and Deputy Head of the Africa and Middle East Division, German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) (Azadeh Zamirirad, “Iran on the Rise? Changing Perceptions and Global Ambitions under Raisi Iran on the Rise? Changing Perceptions and Global Ambitions under Raisi,” Middle East Council on Global Affairs, 4-19-2024, Available Online: https://mecouncil.org/publication_chapters/iran-on-the-rise-changing-perceptions-and-global-ambitions-under-raisi/, Accessed: 7-3-2024)//ilake-mc
Like other revisionist actors, Iran has rejected a U.S.-dominated order and has shared the expectation of a new multipolar global structure with rising regional powers. It has therefore welcomed the relative decline of the United States as a superpower and envisioned the emergence of a post-Western order. For years, Khamenei has claimed that this new order is already in the making, pointing to four main indicators of this transition.5 These include the increasing transfer of political, economic, cultural, and scientific power from the West to Asia; a decline of the United States, Israel, and Europe; the rise of regional and new global powers; and the expansion of the “resistance front.”6 In September 2023, the Supreme Leader reiterated his assessment that the world was “on the verge of a transformation.”7
Here, Iran has greatly benefitted from the Russian war against Ukraine. The war has widened the global rift between East and West, largely decoupling Russia from the Western sphere for the foreseeable future. Thus, long-held Iranian concerns about Moscow have been alleviated, including the latter’s unreliable support at the United Nations (UN) Security Council or being used as a bargaining chip by Moscow vis-à-vis the United States. Additionally, with China entering the Middle East as a political actor after brokering the agreement with Saudi Arabia, Iran’s “Look East” policy now no longer relies on a vague, long-term vision of a post-Western order. Tehran is already seeing the contours of a new, multipolar world along the lines of global blocs that come with greater opportunities for much closer partnerships in the Eastern hemisphere than the country could have hoped for only a few years ago. This assessment is strengthened by Tehran’s assumptions about the diminishing power of the United States and Europe, as they remain engaged in a costly war in Ukraine, as well as of Israel after the Hamas attacks which were labeled by Khamenei as an “irreparable” defeat.