Iran on the Go With SCO

At its most recent meeting in Tajikistan this September, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization started a formal process to grant Iran full membership.
This will be the second time the organization expands after accepting India and Pakistan in 2017 — now extending its reach from Central and South Asia to the greater Middle East.
Iran’s inclusion in SCO has important implications for what is largely a Central Asian organization, even if Iran is the main beneficiary. Tehran hopes that its membership will open up opportunities to expand political, economic and cultural ties with countries across the region. 
With two SCO members on the United Nations Security Council, Iran hopes to get a more sympathetic hearing on issues such as sanctions relief, reads an article published by East Asia Forum. Excerpts follow:
Still, the significance of Iranian membership is, at least for now, more symbolic than substantive. What Iran brings to SCO really depends on the organization’s goals, structure and capacities.
SCO was established in 2001 with limited, albeit critical, goals for its members — to combat the so-called “three evils” of extremism, terrorism and separatism. At the time, these posed serious threats to China, Russia and Central Asian republics. The organization has since expanded its mandate to include modest economic cooperation and energy development, but most importantly, the preservation of member states’ political systems and advocacy for a new type of international relations that is largely read as opposition to US hegemony and unilateralism.
Beijing has in the past two decades greatly extended its reach and influence throughout Central Asia, maritime South Asia and increasingly the Middle East. SCO has helped China secure important energy supplies through Eurasia, while the Belt and Road Initiative has expanded China’s geoeconomic and geopolitical agendas, directly challenging the US position in the region.
SCO is now a symbolically institutionalized organization with annual high-level meetings. But its substantive structure remains mediocre to non-existent — as are its agendas, which tend to be rather diverse and unfocused, with differences between member states impeding its transformation into a truly consequential organization. Perhaps that was the intent of the founding members. 
The symbolic state of SCO means they are yet to cede any sovereignty beyond coordinating efforts to fight the “three evils”. Apart from the skeleton secretariat, the only other concrete entity under SCO is RATS — the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure. The biannual joint anti-terrorism exercises, which typically feature Russian and increasingly Chinese participants, are the most high-profile activity of the organization.
Given its interest in self-preservation, modest economic objectives and limited state capacity, Iran’s membership will hardly add to SCO’s strength. Embracing a major player in the Middle East mainly symbolizes the organization’s geographic reach and continued relevance as an advocate of principles such as common development and cooperative security.

Future Prominent Role

It remains to be seen whether the organization will redefine its agenda to play a more prominent role in the future security and economic issues that connect South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East — three regions of geopolitical and geoeconomic importance. These include energy development, stability of Afghanistan and infrastructural connectivity linking Eurasia, South Asia and the Middle East.
Although its membership boasts 4% of the world’s population and 20% of its GDP, SCO is only as strong and proactive as its core members, Russia, China and to some extent, India, want it to be. Translating the organization’s potential into concrete policy and deeper collaboration depends on the extent to which domestic and member state interests converge, as well as external pressures and opportunities.
SCO’s ability to actively build a regional economic and security architecture will probably remain limited, selective and gradual. Indeed, the prospect of SCO consolidating into a NATO or Quad-like organization remains distant, if not impossible — an outcome likely affected by the evolution of future US–Russia and US–China relations. This is understandable given the diversity of Central Asia, South Asia and the Middle East, as well as the significant resources needed to tackle regional issues.
A potentially big role for SCO will be in contributing to the post-conflict stability of Afghanistan, during which SCO–Afghanistan Contact Group, established in 2005, might play a more active role. 
While Iran’s full membership in SCO presents an opportunity for the organization, the broader geopolitical reality suggests there may be potential cost for its current membership. Indeed, SCO has no influence over whether Iran can get the much-needed economic benefits of sanctions relief to reboot its oil exports.