Geopolitics of Iran's Gas Transit to India; Opportunities and Challenges

Geopolitics of gas has opened a new chapter in international relations in which centers of production, consumption and transit routes of energy as well as influential trans-regional powers are considered. As the world's second biggest country possessing gas reserves, Iran can greatly affect strategic relationships in energy sector if it develops an agenda based on geopolitics. Thus it can find the value for establishing strategic relationships. In this regard, the hegemonic power has made all efforts in order to manage the Persian Gulf's regional affairs, and every of the regional political units which adopts a confrontational position towards the hegemonic power will be pressurized. The existing evidence demonstrates that Iran is valued simply in a non-competitive international milieu for non-hegemonic powers. India’s increasing need to gas energy as a non-hegemonic power has provided Iran with a strategic chance; however numerous (regional and trans-regional) parameters have challenged the transit of Iran’s gas to that country. The author holds that in the case of the formulation of an agenda based upon geopolitical location, Iran can secure its national interest in the utilization of existing opportunities.