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Iran in Africa and Its Influence Portfolio: South Africa, Zimbabwe, and

Uganda

Irán en África y su portafolio de influencia: Sudáfrica, Zimbabue y Uganda

Luciano Zaccara

New Ground Research, Qatar

ORCID: 0000-0002-7429-0886

luciano.zaccara@gmail.com

Principal Researcher at New Ground Research, Qatar, Visiting Associate Professor at Georgetown University in

Qatar, and Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the Gulf International Forum. He holds a BA in Political Science from

the National University of Rosario and a PhD in Arab and Islamic Studies from the Autonomous University of

Madrid. His research focuses on Iranian politics and foreign policy, Gulf politics, International Relations in the

Persian Gulf, and electoral systems in the MENA region.

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Abstract

This article examines Iran’s foreign policy toward Africa (2018–April 2026), with particular attention

to the early effects of the war that erupted on 28 February 2026 between Iran, the United States, and

Israel. It argues that Africa serves Tehran primarily as a political arena: widening diplomatic room for

maneuver, generating legitimacy, and sustaining interlocution through an influence portfolio composed

of official diplomacy, Global South platforms, public diplomacy/soft power, and selective strategic ties.

Rather than treating the war as evidence of a consolidated reorganization of Iran’s Africa policy, the

article reads it as an initial stress test that makes existing mechanisms more observable: reputational

caution, segmentation, legalistic public language, and higher sensitivity toward visible security

cooperation. Through three cases—South Africa (BRICS and visibility thresholds), Zimbabwe

(bilateral density and institutional follow-up), and Uganda (functional ties, NAM, and domestic

segmentation)—the article shows that Iranian influence is uneven and depends on each partner’s

political value, domestic calculations, and the exposure costs amplified by war.

Keywords: Iran; Africa; foreign policy; BRICS; Global South; soft power; segmentation.

Resumen

Este artículo examina la política exterior iraní hacia África (2018–abril de 2026), con especial atención

a los efectos iniciales de la guerra iniciada el 28 de febrero de 2026 entre Irán, Estados Unidos e Israel.

Sostiene que África funciona para Teherán principalmente como arena política: ampliar margen

diplomático, producir legitimidad y sostener interlocuciones mediante un portafolio de influencia

compuesto por diplomacia oficial, plataformas del Sur Global, diplomacia pública/poder blando y

vínculos estratégicos selectivos. Más que presentar la guerra como prueba de una reorganización

consolidada de la política africana de Irán, el artículo la entiende como una prueba de estrés inicial que

vuelve más observables mecanismos preexistentes: cautela reputacional, segmentación, lenguaje

legalista y mayor sensibilidad frente a la cooperación de seguridad visible. A partir de tres casos—

Sudáfrica (BRICS y umbrales de visibilidad), Zimbabue (densidad bilateral y seguimiento institucional)

y Uganda (vínculos funcionales, NAM y segmentación doméstica)—el artículo muestra que la

influencia iraní es desigual y depende del valor político de cada socio, de sus cálculos domésticos y de

los costos de exposición amplificados por la guerra.

Palabras clave: Irán; África; política exterior; BRICS; Sur Global; poder blando; segmentación.

TRABAJO RECIBIDO: 11/3/2026 TRABAJO ACEPTADO: 26/5/2026

Esta obra está bajo una licencia internacional https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

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1. Introduction

Africa has gained centrality in contemporary international politics not only as a terrain

of geopolitical competition, but also as a space for legitimation, public diplomacy, and alliance

diversification. For Iran, that centrality is particularly relevant because the continent offers

room for maneuver to sustain interlocution, contest narratives of isolation, and signal that

external pressure has not eliminated Tehran’s diplomatic agency. This reading, however,

requires caution after the strategic shock opened by the military escalation that erupted on 28

February 2026. The war did not create Iran’s African policy, but it altered the costs attached to

different forms of visibility and therefore offers a useful stress test for observing how Iran and

its African partners manage controversial relationships under pressure.

In the first days of the conflict, the African Union Commission expressed deep concern

about the escalation and the risk of regional spillover (African Union Commission, 2026).

South Africa—a central case in this article—framed the situation as a threat to international

peace and security and called for restraint and respect for international law (The Presidency,

2026; DIRCO, 2026). These early reactions do not prove a durable reorganization of African

positions toward Iran. They do, however, reveal the type of public language, reputational

caution, and legalistic framing that become more salient when the costs of association with

Tehran rise.

The article asks how the 28 February shock appears to affect Iran’s influence portfolio in

Africa and what responses it generates among African partners as the reputational and strategic

costs of relations with Tehran increase. Given the short post-war window covered here, the

hypothesis is deliberately formulated as an expectation based on early evidence rather than as

a claim about consolidated trends. The article expects that the conflict will not eliminate Iran’s

projection in Africa, but will make some mechanisms more visible: lower-exposure

instruments—official diplomacy, Global South forums, and public diplomacy—become

relatively more valuable, while visible strategic signals become more costly. African partners,

in turn, are expected to respond less through full alignment or rupture than through

segmentation, preserving selective channels while moderating public tone and avoiding

visibility thresholds.

Methodologically, the article combines a comparative analysis of three cases with a

synthetic map of other African settings to avoid excessive generalizations. The aim is not to

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measure influence as control or domination, but as the capacity to sustain presence, legitimacy,

and interlocution under adverse conditions. The synthetic map is used for external plausibility,

not as a substitute for systematic case comparison.

In this article, the term “influence portfolio” (or simply “portfolio”) is an analytical

category used to describe a set of instruments that Iran activates flexibly in Africa, rather than

a single, linear strategy. That portfolio includes official diplomacy (visits, memoranda,

commissions), Global South platforms, public diplomacy and soft power, and selective

strategic ties. The concept is intended to capture variation across instruments and partners

without assuming that every contact produces alignment or that every public caution implies

rupture.

2. Literature Review and Contribution

Interest in Africa within the study of Middle Eastern powers’ foreign policies has grown,

but it has done so unevenly. There is a sizeable body of work on the African activism of actors

such as the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, or Israel, where the emphasis tends

to fall on investment, infrastructure, security, or competition over strategic corridors (Özkan,

2012; Özkan & Akgün, 2010; Verhoeven, 2018). By contrast, the Iranian case emerges with

less analytical density and, when it does appear, it tends to be captured by two biases: (a) a

predominantly security-oriented reading and (b) a reading that reduces Iran’s Africa policy to

the need to “circumvent” isolation and sanctions (Lefebvre, 2019; Lob, 2016; Shahvar, 2020;

Keynoush, 2021; Bagheri & Lob, 2022; Balci, 2026; Shariati & Rasouli, 2024). Both biases

are partially correct, but insufficient. They are correct because Iran does operate under external

pressure and because, at certain moments, it has sought to introduce selective strategic signals.

Yet those readings leave in the background what, for Iran, is often the more immediate payoff

of its African presence: legitimacy, interlocution, and narrative. Put differently, the useful

question is not only “what does Iran get” in material terms, but “what can Iran do politically”

with its African relationships at moments of high international vulnerability. Part of the recent

literature, although from different approaches, converges with this intuition: Africa appears as

a space to widen diplomatic margins, sustain a South–South narrative, and produce “proofs”

of international interlocution, rather than as a single or coherent axis of foreign policy (Shahvar,

2020; Keynoush, 2021; Shariati & Rasouli, 2024).

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In terms of temporal evolution, several works stress that Iran’s presence has not been

linear or constant. Some approaches periodize the relationship and interpret it as a scramble

shaped by external conjunctures (sanctions, regional rivalries) and by shifting priorities within

Iran (Lefebvre, 2019). Others adopt a more comparative lens by presidencies—for instance,

contrasting Ahmadinejad’s activism with lower intensity under Rouhani, including the idea of

a relative disengagement in 2013–2021 (Zweiri & Manjang, 2020; Bagheri & Lob, 2022).

Along similar lines, more recent analyses seek to operationalize the drivers of the relationship

(ideology, market needs, strategic resources) using data on high-level visits, reinforcing the

idea of an Africa policy composed of impulses and windows rather than a unified strategy

(Balci, 2026).

A second recurrent gap is the simplified treatment of African agency. Many analyses

assume that African partners align out of affinity, economic interest, or external pressure. This

article proposes a more realistic alternative. Many African governments segment their

relationship with Iran, accepting some components (diplomacy, sectoral cooperation, culture)

and limiting others (visible security). This mechanism speaks to broader debates on hedging,

non-alignment, strategic autonomy, and foreign policy diversification, although it is not

identical to any of them. Hedging, for instance, stresses the management of risks and the

avoidance of exclusive alignment (Kuik, 2021). Segmentation, as used here, is narrower, it

refers to the practical separation of relationship tracks with a controversial partner in order to

preserve benefits while limiting exposure. This approach also avoids relying on Sunni–Shia

sectarian explanations. The argument does not require that cleavage to explain the observed

behavior. Indeed, even the literature that examines cultural or religious diplomacy tends to

describe a broader repertoire (diplomatic, media, educational) that cannot simply be reduced

to confessional alignments, even if the debate sometimes drifts in that direction (Atmaca, 2017;

Alibabalu & Sarkhanov, 2023).

A third limitation in the available literature is the tendency to describe Iran’s Africa

policy with static labels (“influence,” “penetration,” “alliances”) without specifying

mechanisms or evidentiary thresholds. This article focuses on simple mechanisms: visibility

thresholds, segmentation, and the partner’s differential political value. In doing so, it avoids

two errors, assuming that politico-symbolic cooperation is equivalent to a strategic alliance,

and assuming that public caution implies the absence of a relationship. Here, works that

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explicitly question the idea of coherent and sustained “strategic partnerships” between Iran and

Africa are useful, pointing to the absence of evaluative frameworks and dependence on

implementers’ initiatives or conjunctures (Shariati & Rasouli, 2024). The article also draws on

the soft power and public diplomacy literature, but adapts those concepts to Iran’s more limited

repertoire. Soft power is conventionally associated with attraction (Nye, 2004), while public

diplomacy emphasizes communication, relationship-building, and institutional presence

(Melissen, 2005). In the Iranian case, these tools are less about broad cultural attraction than

about maintaining routine contact, political recognizability, and a claim to diplomatic normality

under pressure.

At the same time, there is a strand particularly relevant to this article’s “portfolio”

framework that is not purely security-focused. Work showing how Iran has instrumentalized

cooperation and development as a tool of diplomatic insertion, Lob (2016) demonstrates

empirically that, in certain periods, “developmentalist” activity (for instance, through

Construction Jihad) was an especially effective means to establish relationships and project

technical capacities; and a longer-term reading connects that dimension to the ambitions and

constraints (hegemonic constraints) of Iran’s Africa policy (Lob, 2016; Lob, 2026). This type

of work is key to the argument because it allows us to conceptualize Iran’s presence as a

portfolio of tracks (development/civil sector, official diplomacy, soft power), not as a single

security vector.

There is also literature more focused on subregions or cases that help to organize the

map. The Horn of Africa and the Red Sea appear as spaces where Iran seeks to extend strategic

depth and resist pressures from rivals, but with uneven results and high visibility costs (Corda,

2021; Marsai & Rózsa, 2024; Verhoeven, 2018). At the opposite extreme, Iran’s relationship

with South Africa has been treated as a case of normative tensions and contradictory foreign-

policy principles, useful for thinking about “thresholds” and political costs when the

relationship becomes visible (Onderco, 2016). And, in a more material register, there are

studies that examine opportunities, limits, and patterns of exchange and dependence in Iran–

Africa trade, helping to explain why certain tracks are activated or weakened as a function of

sanctions and state capacity (Chimarizeni, 2017; Lob & Yilmazkuday, 2025).

The February–March 2026 war shock allows these arguments to be translated into initial

expectations. On the one hand, the war raises the cost of associating with Iran; on the other, it

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increases Iran’s need to sustain legitimacy and frameworks of interlocution. The combination

of both forces makes the Iranian portfolio more observable: low-cost instruments (high-level

diplomacy, institutionalized contact, and public diplomacy) should become relatively more

valuable, while visible strategic ties should become more costly for African partners. This

tension appears both in institutional African reactions (African Union Commission, 2026) and

in national responses, such as South Africa’s (DIRCO, 2026; The Presidency, 2026).

In terms of contribution, the article offers three inputs. First, it proposes an operational

framework (influence portfolio, segmentation, and visibility threshold) that allows the Iran–

Africa relationship to be read without falling into economistic or exclusively security-driven

reductionisms. Second, it introduces the 2026 war as an initial stress test that makes certain

mechanisms clearer, without claiming that a consolidated post-war pattern can already be

demonstrated. Third, it combines case studies with a synthetic map of additional African

evidence, strengthening external plausibility without turning the text into an exhaustive

Africanist exercise.

The expected outcome is not to close the debate, but to offer a detailed and verifiable

explanation that can be extended to other cases and other conjunctures: how Global South

diplomacy operates when a major conflict raises the costs of visibility; and how segmentation

strategies are expressed in an environment where the symbolic (legitimacy) and the strategic

(security) can come into tension.

3. Analytical Framework and Research Design

This article analyses Iran’s relationship with Africa as a problem of political influence

under constraints. Influence is not understood as control, domination, or automatic alignment,

but as the capacity to sustain presence, legitimacy, and interlocution in settings where

association costs can rise quickly. This limited definition is important because many observable

traces of Iran’s Africa policy—visits, memoranda, conferences, statements, institutional

committees—do not by themselves prove deep influence. They are treated here as evidence of

access, framing, recognition, or institutionalized contact. They become analytically relevant

when they show patterned continuity, are politically framed by the actors involved, or generate

costs that require management. To operationalize this idea without relying on purely material

measures, the text works with four definitions.

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First, influence portfolio: an analytical category used to capture the flexible repertoire of

instruments that Tehran activates depending on the type of partner and the context. The

portfolio includes (a) official/interstate diplomacy (visits, memoranda, commissions,

statements), (b) public diplomacy and soft power tools (culture, education, narratives,

institutional presence), and (c) selective strategic ties (gestures in security or maritime

cooperation) whose payoff is mainly political and symbolic, but whose cost can surge if they

become too visible. The point is not that Iran always applies the three tracks, or that all of them

generate the same level of influence. The argument is that Iran combines, prioritizes, and adapts

them according to partner value and exposure costs.

Second, segmentation: the typical way in which many African partners manage ties with

an actor under high international controversy. Segmentation implies accepting cooperation on

some tracks (for instance, civil-sector cooperation, diplomatic contact, or a Global South

narrative) and limiting others (especially visible security), or sustaining discreet channels while

adopting a prudent or legalistic public language. Unlike full alignment, segmentation preserves

autonomy; unlike rupture, it preserves contact. It is therefore close to, but more specific than,

broader concepts such as hedging or non-alignment (Kuik, 2021).

Third, visibility threshold: the point at which a relationship ceases to be manageable as

diplomatic continuity and begins to generate domestic or external political costs. In this article,

a threshold is identified empirically when one or more of the following signals appear: public

controversy, parliamentary or media criticism, official inquiry, institutional review, diplomatic

distancing, damage-control language, or a marked shift toward legalistic public framing. The

South African episode linked to BRICS+ naval drills (January 2026) is the clearest example of

this mechanism, but the same criteria guide the interpretation of the other cases.

Fourth, soft power/public diplomacy: used here in an operational sense, not as “mass

cultural capacity.” In the Iranian case, soft power should not be read simply through the

conventional language of attraction (Nye, 2004). It tends to be low-intensity but politically

useful; it produces routine contacts, normalizes interlocution, and allows presence to be

sustained when visible strategic cooperation becomes more costly. Public diplomacy, in this

sense, refers less to persuasion of broad publics than to relationship-building, institutional

presence, and the production of diplomatic normality (Melissen, 2005).

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On the basis of these definitions, the study design is built. The article uses a qualitative

comparative design with episode tracing across three main cases and a synthetic map of

secondary cases. The comparative logic is one of contrast: countries are selected because they

offer different political value to Iran, activate different visibility costs, and reveal different

forms of African agency under a war shock. The cases are therefore not intended as a

representative sample of Africa, but as analytically differentiated modalities of Iran’s portfolio.

South Africa represents the case of multilateral prestige and visibility, it provides Iran

with access to a high-symbolic-value Global South setting such as BRICS, but it also shows

clear thresholds when the relationship moves toward visible security.

Zimbabwe represents the case of bilateral density and political affinity, it provides

receptivity and, above all, the capacity for institutional follow-up (commissions, reviews, re-

visits), with less global prestige but greater bilateral continuity.

Uganda functions as an intermediate case, it combines functional cooperation and non-

aligned diplomatic sociability through NAM, while also showing how war can expose mixed

signals and domestic fragmentation inside a partner state.

Table 1: Comparative logic of the three main cases

Case Political value and dominant track Visibility risk, post-28F signal, and

comparative contribution

South

Africa

High-symbolic-value Global South setting:

BRICS-related prestige, diplomatic

normality, and selective strategic

signaling.

High risk when cooperation becomes security-

visible. The naval-drills inquiry and post-28F

legalistic language show the visibility threshold of

high-prestige ties.

Zimbabwe Bilateral density and political receptivity:

MoUs, commissions, re-visits, and civil-

sector cooperation.

Medium/lower risk unless framed as explicit

alignment. Public caution after 28F suggests

continuity under prudence and the limits of

symbolic evidence.

Uganda Functional access and NAM sociability:

practical cooperation plus non-aligned

multilateral infrastructure.

Mixed risk due to domestic coherence.

Contradictory political and military signals show

domestic fragmentation as a limit to Iran’s

political leverage.

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Periodization is part of the design. The article works with two windows: 2018–27

February 2026 and 28 February–April 2026. The year 2018 marks the beginning of a new stage

for Iranian foreign policy following the United States’ withdrawal from the nuclear deal

(JCPOA) and the launch of the “maximum pressure” strategy (reimposition and tightening of

sanctions) by the Trump administration. That structural change reshapes Tehran’s incentives

to diversify partners and seek extra-Western legitimacy, and it offers a clear baseline against

which to compare the 2026 shock.

The second window functions as a preliminary “stress test”. If the war raises reputational

and political costs, we should observe (a) greater public prudence and legalistic language

among African partners, (b) greater relative relevance of low-exposure instruments (official

diplomacy, Global South forums, and public diplomacy), and (c) higher sensitivity to visible

strategic gestures. Thus, the war is not only context; it is an event that makes the

threshold/segmentation mechanism more observable. Given the short window, however, these

observations are treated as early signals rather than as evidence of durable realignment.

Empirically, the article privileges low-ambiguity evidence and hierarchizes sources: (a)

official African and multilateral statements to capture public frames and positions, (b)

international news agencies for basic facts and chronologies, (c) local sources for domestic

nuance, treated cautiously when they express signals rather than consolidated state positions,

and (d) Iranian official or diplomatic sources as evidence of Iranian framing and intention, not

as neutral proof of effective influence. The synthetic map (Section 7) serves an external

plausibility function. It prevents the argument from depending only on three cases without

turning the text into an exhaustive Africanist study. Public evidence is uneven across African

countries; the war increases informational noise; and “influence” cannot be measured as

control. The article’s wager is therefore more modest, to offer a verifiable explanation of how

an influence portfolio may be recalibrated under war shock, and how African segmentation

appears when visibility costs rise.

4. South Africa: BRICS, Global South Legitimacy, and Visibility Thresholds

South Africa occupies a singular place in Iran’s African relations because it combines

international prestige, political visibility, and membership in a multilateral framework of high

symbolic value such as BRICS. For Tehran, this does not amount to automatic support, nor

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does South Africa operate as a simple transmission belt from Iran to the BRICS as a whole. Its

value is more mediated and contingent. It offers a setting in which Iran can project diplomatic

normality, Global South belonging, and the capacity for interlocution in an adverse

environment (BRICS Brasil, 2025). In the logic of the influence portfolio, South Africa

represents the track of multilateral prestige, a partner that provides narrative and status more

than material dependence.

South Africa’s main value for Iran does not lie in hard bilateralism, but in the framework

and the political symbolism around it. BRICS amplifies the message that Iran is not completely

isolated and that it can insert itself—at least symbolically—into alternative architectures of

political coordination. This is the “high visibility” dimension of the portfolio. It produces

legitimacy and reduces the costs of interlocution by allowing the relationship to be presented

as part of a wider Global South sociability, rather than as an exceptional bilateral tie. Yet

precisely because the framework is visible, it can also generate costs when the relationship

moves from diplomatic sociability to security signaling (BRICS Brasil, 2025).

4.1. From Prestige to Cost: the BRICS+ Naval Episode and Post-28F 2026

Segmentation

The same relationship that produces legitimacy also displays limits when it crosses a

visibility threshold. The episode of the “BRICS Plus” naval drills in January 2026 is central

because it makes that mechanism observable. It should not be treated as proof that South Africa

had become strategically aligned with Iran; rather, it shows how a relationship that is

manageable at the level of multilateral sociability can become politically costly when translated

into visible security cooperation. Influence depends not only on how many contacts exist, but

on how costly it is to make them visible.

China, Russia, and Iran launched “BRICS Plus” naval exercises near Cape Town, framed

by the South African government as maneuvers oriented toward maritime cooperation. That

framing reveals an explicit attempt to keep the episode in a “technical” register, avoiding its

reading as a geopolitical positioning. However, domestic controversies erupted, showing that

the executive did not fully control the political meaning of a visible security signal (Reuters,

2026a). On 16 January 2026, it was reported that the South African Ministry of Defense opened

an inquiry into Iran’s participation to determine whether President Ramaphosa’s instructions

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had been ignored or misinterpreted (Reuters, 2026b). This turns the drills into a “critical event”,

it is not only maritime cooperation, but a case in which the visibility of a tie with Iran activates

domestic mechanisms of control, review, and damage management (Reuters, 2026b).

Analytically, the episode reveals the threshold in three ways: (1) it reclassifies the

relationship—once the tie moves into visible security it ceases to be read as diplomatic routine;

(2) it triggers domestic contestation over meaning, raising the cost of sustaining the signal; and

(3) it produces institutional containment, because once the threshold is reached the relationship

requires explicit damage-control mechanisms (Reuters, 2026a; Reuters, 2026b).

Importantly, this occurs before the war of 28 February 2026. Its analytical value therefore

doubles, it anticipates that, under tension, even a tie of high symbolic value (South

Africa/BRICS) faces limits when cooperation becomes strategically visible. After the outbreak

of war, that threshold does not disappear; it becomes more sensitive. This logic is reinforced

by South Africa’s post-28F 2026 positioning, it called for restraint and respect for international

law, mainly Article 51 of the UN Charter but without mentioning any specific country (The

Presidency, 2026), and expressed “deep concern” about escalation in the Gulf and the risk of

regional widening (DIRCO, 2026). For the article’s argument, the sequence is consistent with

segmentation, South Africa can sustain the Global South/BRICS frame and, simultaneously,

adopt prudent and legalistic language when the reputational cost of association with Iran

increases. The case therefore contributes to the comparison by showing the upper limit of

symbolic value. Prestige matters, but visible security cooperation can activate containment and

damage-control mechanisms (DIRCO, 2026; The Presidency, 2026).

5. Zimbabwe: Bilateral Density, Political Affinity, and Institutional Follow-up

Zimbabwe is a key comparative case because it represents a modality of Iranian

projection different from South Africa’s, less multilateral prestige, but greater bilateral density

and, above all, a tie that Tehran can present as functional and institutionally followed up. In an

influence portfolio, not all partners are valuable for the same reasons. South Africa is valuable

for platform (BRICS) and global visibility; Zimbabwe is valuable for political receptivity, a

narrative of solidarity under pressure, and the possibility of sustaining continuity through

commissions and periodic reviews without turning the relationship into a high-profile

geopolitical gesture.

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5.1. The 2023 Package and What It Reveals about Iran’s “Portfolio”

The structuring episode for the case is the visit of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi to

Harare (July 2023), at the end of his Africa tour. Iran and Zimbabwe signed 12 memoranda of

understanding, including the announcement of a tractor manufacturing plant involving an

Iranian company and a local partner, as well as cooperation on energy, agriculture,

pharmaceuticals, telecommunications, and R&D. The number of agreements indicates that

Zimbabwe presents itself as a partner willing to materialize the relationship in a broad package,

not only in political declarations (Reuters, 2023b).

The Iranian foreign ministry’s communiqué allows the scope of those documents to be

specified and, in doing so, reinforces the relevance of the case for the argument. According to

official information, the package included cooperation on oil and energy; telecommunications;

social security and insurance; labor and employment; higher education, science and

research/technology; agriculture and fisheries; food and medicines; medical equipment;

occupational safety; child protection; empowerment of persons with disabilities; as well as the

specific agreement between Iran Tractor Company and Zimbabwe Magai Company (Iran

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2023).

This is crucial to avoid economizing the case. What matters is not only that productive

sectors appear, but that the package creates a civil-sector bureaucratic density (labor, social

protection, health, education/science) that may function as an infrastructure of continuity. This

should not be overstated as evidence of concrete policy effects in all areas. The evidentiary

value of the package is more limited but still important, it shows access, political receptivity,

and an institutionalized repertoire of low strategic-cost tracks, which are more likely to survive

when visibility thresholds in security rise.

The domestic Zimbabwean framing helps explain why that package is politically viable.

Official coverage presented the MoUs as a deepening of ties between two countries that

perceive themselves as targets of Western sanctions, justifying cooperation as an exercise of

sovereignty and autonomy. That framing matters because it suggests the relationship is not

only technical, but also politically legitimable for the receiving leadership (The Herald, 2023).

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5.2. Evidence of Follow-up and Institutional Continuity

The second reason why Zimbabwe deserves to be a central case is that there are verifiable

traces of follow-up—something that is often absent in purely declarative relationships. These

traces do not by themselves prove deep influence, but they do indicate that the relationship has

institutional routines beyond a single presidential visit. The text highlights three signals:

1. Prior infrastructure: before Raisi’s visit, the relationship was already channeled

through a Joint Permanent Commission on Cooperation (JPCC), with reference to a 9th

session held in Tehran in 2023. This suggests we are not facing an improvised

relationship, but an existing institutional track (The Herald, 2026a).

2. High-level re-visits: the presence of Vice President Constantino Chiwenga in

Tehran (April 2024) to lead Zimbabwe’s participation in the Iran–Africa International

Economic Conference, presented as continuity of the 2023 MoUs, is evidence that the

relationship had political—not only bureaucratic—follow-up (The Herald, 2024).

3. Mid-term review: the preparation of a mid-term review of the Joint Commission

(December 2025), with an assessment of progress and the setting of new priorities, is

the best indicator of continuity: agreements are not only announced, but also evaluated

and reprogrammed (TV BRICS, 2025).

In sum, Zimbabwe represents the bilateral-affinitarian modality of the Iranian portfolio,

a partner useful not for global prestige, but for political receptivity and the ability to sustain a

tie through continuity mechanisms. Its value for Iran is therefore not that it provides a strategic

alliance, but that it helps preserve the image and practice of diplomatic normality under

pressure.

5.3. Post-war: Public Caution and Plausible Institutional Continuity

The outbreak of the war between Iran, the United States, and Israel tends to raise the

reputational cost of associating with Tehran and favors more cautious public responses. In

Zimbabwe’s case, the government adopted a prudent register by signaling that it was closely

following developments after the attacks (The Herald, 2026b). This evidence is limited and

should not be read as proof of a consolidated post-war adjustment. It does, however, fit the

segmentation mechanism: public tone becomes cautious, while the relationship’s low-exposure

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infrastructure—commissions, civil-sector cooperation, follow-up diplomacy, and participation

in multilateral or economic formats—can plausibly be preserved. Precisely for this reason, the

2024–2025 follow-up matters. It suggests that Zimbabwe has institutional channels that may

allow continuity through visibility adjustments rather than abrupt discontinuity.

6. Uganda: Functional Ties, Non-aligned Sociability, and Domestic Segmentation

under War

Uganda functions as an intermediate case because it combines three elements that

together make it especially useful for an analysis of an influence portfolio under war shock.

First, it is part of the same 2023 diplomatic impulse (Raisi’s tour) and allows observation of a

low-profile functional relationship. Second, as chair of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), it

offers a Global South sociability setting that reduces the costs of interlocution for Iran. Third,

after the outbreak of war, the case shows mixed signals and, above all, domestic segmentation

—not only between states, but within the political–military apparatus itself. This does not

necessarily indicate a coherent Ugandan strategy; it may also reflect domestic fragmentation

or weak message discipline. Either way, it complicates Iran’s ability to politically capitalize on

the relationship.

6.1. Functionality (2023): Density without Strategic Visibility

During Raisi’s visit to Uganda in July 2023, four agreements were signed and

cooperation in areas of practical interest was discussed (Reuters, 2023a). The importance of

the episode, from the article’s framework, does not lie in technical detail but in the type of tie

that is being built: a relationship presentable as civil-sector and development cooperation, with

a low symbolic charge of alignment.

In comparative terms, Uganda plays a different role than Zimbabwe. While Harare lends

itself to a broad package with a more explicit political component, Kampala fits better as a

partner where Iran can seek density through the accumulation of practical agreements. In the

article’s language, this functional track creates channels, contact bureaucracies, and diplomatic

routines without necessarily raising the visibility threshold. This does not prove influence in a

strong sense, but it does show the kind of low-exposure access that becomes more valuable

when reputational costs rise.

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The reference to Iranian support for a planned refinery should be read as an indicator of

functional logic, not as an economistic variable. An offer of technical expertise has a specific

political payoff: it signals state capacity despite external pressure; enables cooperation that can

be justified as “technical”; and opens sustained interlocution (ministries, agencies, firms) that

tends to survive crisis conjunctures better than visible strategic signals (Reuters, 2023a).

6.2. NAM (2025) and War (2026): Global South Infrastructure and Mixed Signals

Uganda assumed the NAM chairmanship for 2024–2027 and organized ministerial

meetings in Kampala that explicitly affirmed Global South solidarity. In a communiqué of 15

October 2025, the Ugandan chair presented the mid-term ministerial review meeting as a space

for coordination and reaffirmation of principles such as sovereignty, equality, and non-

interference (NAM Uganda Chairmanship, 2025). For the argument, this matters because Iran

seeks not only bilateral ties but also platforms where contact and narrative are less costly.

From Iran’s perspective, forums such as NAM perform a structural function, they reduce

the cost of interlocution by enabling bilateral meetings on the margins of multilateral

gatherings; they facilitate photos and statements without each interaction having to be justified

as an exceptional bilateral decision; and they offer a discursive frame in which Iran can present

itself as part of a constellation of states that claim autonomy and criticize unilateralism. In

short, NAM functions as political infrastructure to sustain presence and legitimacy when other

portfolio tracks become more sensitive.

War, however, reveals the limits of the Ugandan case as a stable partner. In March 2026,

President Museveni stated that Uganda would not get involved in wars he described as tribal

wars between Jews and neighbors, in the context of coordinated U.S. and Israeli attacks against

Iran (Bagala, 2026). In parallel, Uganda’s military chief publicly stated that Uganda would join

the war on Israel’s side if Israel faced defeat (Demir, 2026). Uganda’s analytical value lies

precisely in this coexistence. It reveals a mechanism related to, but distinct from, interstate

segmentation: domestic fragmentation. Under war shock, contradictory signals inside the

partner state increase uncertainty and reduce Iran’s ability to leverage the tie politically. Thus,

Uganda is not simply a case of segmentation by design; it is a case in which functional ties and

non-aligned sociability coexist with fragmented domestic signaling.

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Uganda thus contributes to the comparison a type of relationship that is neither

multilateral prestige (South Africa) nor bilateral affinitarian density (Zimbabwe), but a

combination of functionality, non-aligned sociability, and domestic ambivalence. That mix is

especially useful for the argument because it shows how, under wartime conditions, visibility

costs can emerge not only between governments, but also within the political arenas of partner

states.

7. Synthetic African Map: Extensions of the Portfolio beyond the Three Cases

To avoid the argument depending exclusively on three cases, this section offers a

synthetic map of other manifestations of the Iranian portfolio in Africa. Its function is limited

and explicit, it provides external plausibility and illustrates variation beyond the three main

cases. It does not test each case with the same depth, nor does it treat all examples as equally

probative. The examples below show that the portfolio’s three tracks (political

diplomacy/narrative, selective strategic ties, and public diplomacy/soft power) appear with

different weights across African countries and forums, while the war appears likely to increase

segmentation and the cost of visibility.

At the platform level, Nigeria is a useful example. Nigeria is part of the D-8 group—the

Developing Eight—along with Iran and six other Muslim-majority countries: Bangladesh,

Egypt, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, and Turkey (Reuters, 2024a). In June 2024, a D-8

statement called on the United States to lift its veto on full Palestinian membership in the

United Nations, showing how the regional agenda (Gaza/Palestine) projects into Global South

frameworks where Africa is also present (Reuters, 2024b). After the 2026 war, a D-8 summit

planned in Indonesia was postponed because of the conflict, illustrating how escalation

reshuffles even peripheral multilateral diplomacy (Reuters, 2026d).

At the bilateral-institutional level, Cameroon illustrates low-profile political

institutionalization. In February 2025, an Iranian diplomatic site reported the signing of a

Memorandum of Understanding for a Joint Political Committee between Iran and Cameroon,

as well as meetings between the Director General for Africa and the Cameroonian foreign

minister (Embassy of Iran, Abidjan, 2025). Also in Cameroon, Iran’s Ministry of Foreign

Affairs reported its delegation’s presence at the Council of Foreign Ministers meeting of the

Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) held in Yaoundé in August 2024, reinforcing the

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idea that Iran uses African forums and venues to sustain narrative and contacts (Iran MFA,

2024).

Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of the Congo show a pattern of discursive

legitimacy framed around sovereignty and non-interference. Iranian sources reported a meeting

of the foreign ministers of Iran and Mozambique in Kampala in October 2025, on the margins

of the NAM ministerial meeting (Mehr News Agency, 2025). In March 2025, an Iranian

statement also supported the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Democratic Republic

of the Congo and the role of African solution mechanisms (Mehr News Agency, 2025b). Both

examples point to the use of Africa as a stage for political positioning rather than as a space for

hard alliances.

Namibia and Senegal illustrate the use of diplomatic memory and bilateral commissions.

In 2021, Iran’s foreign ministry reported a meeting with Namibia’s foreign minister in which

Iran underscored its historic support for the country’s independence and Africa’s place in the

foreign policy of the new Iranian administration (Iran MFA, 2021). In Senegal, the Iran–

Senegal Joint Economic Commission was reactivated in December 2023 after more than a

decade, with agreements in agricultural, scientific, and cultural areas (Tasnim News, 2023).

Angola shows a double register, (a) as a potential economic interlocutor; and (b) as a

symbol of African institutional visibility within Iran’s agenda. In November 2024, Iran’s

embassy in Pretoria reported a meeting between the non-resident ambassador and the president

of the Angolan Chamber of Commerce, highlighting cooperation possibilities (Embassy of

Iran, Pretoria, 2024). And in February 2025, Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs posted a

message on X highlighting Iran’s role as an observer to the African Union and congratulating

Angola on assuming the organization’s presidency (Iran MFA, 2025).

An additional element of this portfolio, combining public diplomacy and politico-

business sociability without relying on hard alliances, is the Iran–Africa conferences organized

in Tehran. In April 2024, Iran’s presidency presented the Second Iran–Africa Economic

Conference as a sign of political will to deepen ties, and Raisi explicitly framed the meeting as

an expression of that will despite external pressures (President.ir, 2024). Beyond the economic

component, these events function as a device of diplomatic visibility: they bring delegations

together, facilitate contacts, and reinforce a South–South cooperation narrative.

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The 2026 war does not eliminate this type of instrument, but early evidence suggests that

it may change its relative payoff, it may gain value as a low strategic-cost channel (contact and

narrative) and lose value if interpreted as explicit political alignment. For the argument, the

key is not whether these conferences replace other relationships, but how they broaden the

repertoire of interaction when visibility thresholds in the strategic domain become stricter.

In this sense, Iran–Africa conferences help nuance the debate on influence, they are not

a substitute for alliances, but they are a mechanism to produce diplomatic routine and selective

visibility. In segmentation terms, they allow many African partners to participate in a relatively

technical or economic cooperation format without necessarily assuming visible strategic

commitments. That makes them especially useful in periods of high tension, when the costs of

visible security rise and political space is sought through alternative channels.

For this reason, in the post-2026 setting, it is more plausible to expect a shift toward these

kinds of formats than toward high-profile strategic demonstrations, although this remains an

analytical expectation rather than a consolidated trend.

Taken together, these mentions suggest that the Iranian portfolio operates in layers: (a)

platforms and diplomatic sociability (BRICS, NAM, D-8; and forums where Africa appears as

a venue, such as the OIC in Yaoundé); (b) low-profile bilateral institutional mechanisms

(political committees, joint commissions); and (c) a discourse of sovereignty and legitimacy.

In the post-28 February 2026 context, the expected pattern is that Iran will privilege low-cost

tools and that African partners will intensify segmentation, avoiding overly visible strategic

signals. Table 2 summarizes these examples while distinguishing between stronger evidence

of institutionalized ties and more modest indicators of diplomatic contact or symbolic

positioning.

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Table 2: Iran’s Africa influence portfolio: track, evidence, and post-28F 2026 reading

Country Dominant track Evidence/status Post-28F reading

South Africa Multilateral prestige

(BRICS) + strategic

threshold

BRICS+ naval drills and inquiry (Reuters,

2026b); official statements (DIRCO, 2026).

Status: strong episode-based evidence.

High symbolic value for Iran; high

sensitivity when visible security is

involved.

Zimbabwe Bilateral affinity +

diplomatic density

12 MoUs (Reuters, 2023b); follow-up

mechanisms; public caution (The Herald, 2026b).

Status: moderate evidence of institutionalized

contact, not proof of deep policy effects.

Bilateral receptivity, but post-war

public tone tends toward prudence

while low-exposure channels may

continue.

Uganda Functional ties/NAM

+ mixed signals

4 agreements (Reuters, 2023a); NAM (NAM

Uganda Chairmanship, 2025); 2026 signals

(Bagala, 2026; Demir, 2026). Status:

moderate/indicative evidence.

Domestic segmentation/fragmentation

reduces Iran’s ability to leverage the

relationship politically.

Nigeria Global South

sociability (D-8) +

high-level

diplomacy

D-8 and Palestine agenda (Reuters, 2024a; Reuters,

2024b); summit affected by war (Reuters,

2026d). Status: platform-level evidence.

Multilateral interaction continues, but

platforms become more sensitive to

escalation.

Cameroon Low-profile political

institutionalisation

MoU Joint Political Committee (Embassy of Iran,

Abidjan, 2025); OIC in Yaoundé (Iran MFA,

2024). Status: indicative institutional evidence.

Low visibility costs; useful to keep

channels open during wartime.

Mozambique NAM/Global South +

diplomacy

Foreign ministers’ meeting in Kampala (Mehr

News Agency, 2025). Status: modest diplomatic-

contact evidence.

Favors discursive continuity; low

strategic exposure.

DRC Discursive legitimacy

(sovereignty/non-

interference)

Statement on sovereignty and territorial integrity

(Mehr News Agency, 2025b). Status:

symbolic/framing evidence.

Low-cost signal; adds narrative more

than alliances.

Namibia Diplomatic memory

+ historical

legitimacy

Bilateral meeting and historical support (Iran

MFA, 2021). Status: symbolic/diplomatic

memory evidence.

Long-term symbolic capital; discreet in

wartime context.

Senegal Joint commission +

sectoral diplomacy

Joint commission reactivated (Tasnim News,

2023). Status: moderate institutional evidence.

“Technical” cooperation can continue,

avoiding visible strategic

components.

Angola Economic channel +

African institutional

visibility

Chamber of commerce (Embassy of Iran, Pretoria,

2024); AU observer (Iran MFA, 2025). Status:

indicative economic/institutional evidence.

Potential low-risk partner; beware

over-visibility during war.

Kenya High-level diplomacy

(2023 tour) +

sectoral cooperation

Start of the 2023 Africa tour and MoUs (Reuters,

2023a). Status: indicative diplomatic evidence.

Example of pragmatism; tends toward

segmentation to avoid external costs.

Source: Author’s elaboration based on various official sources and news agencies

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8. Conclusion

This article argued that Iran’s relationship with Africa is better understood as an influence

portfolio, rather than as a uniform “Africa strategy”, aimed at producing legitimacy, sustaining

interlocution, and widening diplomatic margins under adverse conditions. The war that began

on 28 February 2026 does not refute that premise. It provides an initial stress test that makes

the portfolio more observable because it raises the exposure costs of ties with Tehran and makes

public tone, instrument selection, and visibility thresholds more politically sensitive.

The comparison between South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Uganda suggests three main

results. First, Iranian influence in Africa is differential, it depends on the partner’s political

value and on the cost associated with making the relationship visible. South Africa offers

multilateral prestige (BRICS) but shows limits when the tie crosses into visible strategic terrain;

Zimbabwe provides bilateral density and institutional continuity, useful for sustaining

receptivity even under greater public caution; Uganda shows a functional and intermediate

modality, marked by ambivalences and mixed signals that reduce Iran’s ability to leverage the

tie politically. Second, early evidence suggests that the war increases the cost of the visible

strategic track and makes low-exposure instruments (official diplomacy, Global South

platforms, and public diplomacy) relatively more valuable. Third, African agency is expressed

not only as reaction to Iran, but also as selective instrumentalization. Governments preserve

channels that serve their own diplomatic, economic, or autonomy-oriented objectives while

avoiding gestures that raise exposure costs.

The synthetic African map reinforces this reading by showing that the portfolio operates

in layers beyond the three cases: (a) platforms and diplomatic sociability (BRICS, NAM, D-8

and forums hosted on African soil), (b) low-profile bilateral mechanisms (political committees,

joint commissions), and (c) a recurring narrative of sovereignty, non-interference, and South–

South cooperation. Under post-28F 2026 conditions, the most plausible pattern is not the

disappearance of the tie, but its movement toward lower-exposure formats and greater public

ambiguity, with variation depending on each partner’s domestic context. This remains a

cautious inference because the post-war window examined here is short.

In explanatory terms, the argument rests on three dynamics observable in the available

public evidence: (1) an intensification of Iran’s search for interlocution and legitimacy beyond

the Euro-Atlantic axis; (2) the existence of visibility thresholds that make strategic gestures

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more costly and activate institutional containment or discursive prudence; and (3) the

possibility of domestic fragmentation among African partners, producing contradictory signals

and complicating linear readings of the “Global South” as a bloc. Taken together, this suggests

that Iranian influence in Africa does not disappear with war, but becomes more selective, more

dependent on each partner’s political value, and more conditioned by exposure costs. The

article therefore offers a framework for studying influence under pressure, while leaving open

the need for future research once post-war patterns become more empirically consolidated.

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Author Contributions (CRediT)

Authors' Full Names

Academic Contribution

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

Luciano Zaccara x x x x x x x x x

1 — Project administration; 2 — Funding acquisition; 3 — Formal analysis; 4 —

Conceptualization; 5 — Data curation; 6 — Writing – review and editing; 7 —

Investigation; 8 — Methodology; 9 — Resources; 10 — Writing – original draft; 11 —

Software; 12 — Supervision; 13 — Validation; 14 — Visualization.