During the 18th BRICS summit at Bharat Mandapam, Prime Minister Narendra Modi received Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Delegates directed much of their formal commentary toward trade routes and dissatisfaction with an international order they described as no longer representative of how economic and political influence is currently distributed worldwide.

Iran received only limited attention on the official agenda. Private conversations, which often shape outcomes more than official pronouncements, are thought to have included the continuing hostilities involving Iran among the matters discussed.

The summit's host country and its two dominant participants may hold enough influence to steer the drawn-out conflict toward a negotiated resolution. The conflict has unfolded differently from what administration officials had anticipated.

Military operations carried out by the United States and Israel in June 2025 damaged Iran's nuclear capabilities without eliminating the programme or removing the government from power. Talks that began over the summer concluded without an agreement being reached.

President Trump told reporters the conflict would end following the November midterms, a timeline observers have noted aligns more closely with electoral considerations than with military or strategic factors. The preferred result, as described, would allow him to frame any deal as evidence of both non-proliferation progress and effective pressure on Iran.

What remains absent, according to analysts, is any clear route to that goal that avoids both a prolonged military engagement likely to face public opposition and a negotiated settlement that his supporters and Israel would view as a concession.

Tehran's position centres on obtaining a credible security assurance — one that Washington has shown limited capacity to provide. Any commitments made by a sitting administration can be withdrawn by a successor government, or reversed by that same administration within months, a position Iranian officials have stated openly since the conflict began.

Iran has also expressed a need for relief from economic restrictions that operates outside the framework of the United States financial system. These twin requirements — dependable defence guarantees and financial systems operating outside dollar dependency — are ones that Russia, China, and to a growing extent India appear positioned to meet, whereas the United States faces constraints in doing so.

Russia's role in this context centres primarily on questions of security arrangements. Over the past two decades, Russia has cultivated a defence relationship with Iran that encompasses air defence systems, military training, and a formal comprehensive strategic partnership treaty concluded the previous year.

Analysts have questioned whether Moscow has the military capacity to shield Tehran from potential strikes, given that its armed forces have been substantially depleted by the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Russia could nonetheless provide a more limited contribution: acting as a diplomatic guarantor, holding a place in any oversight framework, and serving as a conduit through which Iran might assert that its sovereignty had been honoured.

For a government whose political standing rests partly on opposing American influence, Russia's presence at the table could reframe any agreement from one-sided capitulation to a mutually negotiated outcome.

China's involvement is primarily financial and economic in nature. China absorbs the bulk of Iran's petroleum exports, often routed through third-party brokers operating outside dollar-denominated clearing networks, a pattern that has persisted across years of international sanctions with relatively limited interruption.

An agreement enabling broader, institutionalised Chinese investment in Iran — potentially embedded within the 25-year cooperation framework both nations concluded in 2021 — could provide Tehran with an economic pathway that does not depend on the lifting of sanctions by Washington. An extended period of hostilities also threatens the petroleum supplies and maritime trade routes that Beijing relies upon, giving China independent motivation to steer Tehran toward a negotiated agreement.

India maintains a dual stance, sustaining two bilateral relationships that many governments would regard as fundamentally at odds. The country retains its position as a close defence partner within the Quad alliance while also preserving trade and diplomatic ties with Iran, centred on the Chabahar port and access to Central Asian markets.

India's position allows it to maintain open diplomatic channels with both Washington and Tehran, without either party viewing its engagement with suspicion. New Delhi has consistently opposed nuclear proliferation in the region while also holding a strategic interest in maintaining stability across the Gulf, through which a substantial share of the country's energy imports and overseas worker remittances flow.

India's position makes it a plausible host and potential facilitator for discreet negotiations aimed at finding a path toward de-escalation.

One conceivable pathway, as outlined by analysts, would involve Tehran agreeing to an oversight structure it could portray at home as the product of diplomacy rather than external pressure, with Moscow acting as co-guarantor of the inspections process alongside the International Atomic Energy Agency. Under such an arrangement, Beijing would broaden its financial commitments through pre-existing treaty frameworks, filling the economic gap that relief from American trade restrictions would otherwise be expected to address.

India, which recently hosted the summit that opened the door to the arrangement, is described as serving as a conduit for the diplomatic process and may host subsequent rounds of negotiations. The administration has stated that Iran will not acquire nuclear weapons — a position reiterated on multiple occasions — while the conflict concludes without a prolonged deployment of troops in the region or the need for further Israeli military action.

Member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council have been tracking this development with close interest. Over recent years, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar have pursued a dual-track approach, aligning themselves with BRICS-affiliated bodies and expanding ties with China and Russia while maintaining longstanding relationships with Washington.

A regional government that witnessed an ally shift from offering dialogue to threatening strikes on infrastructure within weeks may have grounds, analysts have suggested, to broaden its diplomatic and trade ties to avoid over-reliance on the priorities of any single administration.

Any arrangement of this kind between major powers would require mutual accommodation from all parties involved. Any potential involvement from Russia is seen by some analysts as largely ceremonial, given the constraints imposed by ongoing operations in Ukraine.

Beijing appears to favour non-involvement in regional security arrangements, with some analysts suggesting it may view a prolonged dispute as less costly to its position than a resolution that would demand an open declaration of allegiance. India faces the challenge of acting as a neutral intermediary in a conflict where one party is being targeted militarily by its closest strategic ally.

Israel has expressed little interest in any agreement over which it would lack oversight, while domestic pressures within Iran — including ongoing protests and resistance from conservative factions — could complicate Tehran's ability to reach an accord.

Those barriers notwithstanding, analysts have noted that continuing hostilities without defined objectives or a negotiated resolution does not guarantee greater stability. Participation from Russia, China, and India, analysts have said, will be shaped by each country's own national interests — anchored in access to stable energy sources, freedom of movement along key maritime corridors, and a Gulf region that allows them to remain neutral.

For decades, analysts have noted, United States foreign policy in the Middle East operated on the premise that Washington held the authority to determine the framework of regional security arrangements. Recent developments, together with the timing of an unresolved conflict involving Iran and a BRICS summit convened by nations regarded as well-placed to facilitate a resolution, have brought that underlying assumption into question, according to analysts.

A government seeking to exit a prolonged conflict it faces difficulty resolving may find, analysts have suggested, that diplomatic routes through New Delhi, Moscow, and Beijing offer a more viable path than direct engagement with Tehran.