IMI: The Three-Civilization Compact — Iran, Italy, and Mexico in the Making of a Multipolar Strategic Network

# IMI: The Three-Civilization Compact ### Iran, Italy, and Mexico in the Making of a Multipolar Strategic Network **Book Proposal****Author: Mohammad Hassan Sangtarash** ## Overview *IMI: The Three-Civilization Compact* explores an unconventional question in international relations: **Can three geographically distant and institutionally different states—Iran, Italy, and Mexico—develop meaningful strategic cooperation through a networked model rather than through a traditional alliance or geopolitical bloc?** Iran, Italy, and Mexico share no common border, belong to no common alliance, and have no established history of coordinated foreign policy. Yet their different civilizational inheritances, geographic positions, economic structures, technological capabilities, and strategic constraints provide an unusual case through which to examine a broader question: **how can states with different historical and institutional backgrounds build functional connections within an emerging multipolar international system?** The book does not assume that an IMI strategic compact already exists, nor does it argue that these three states should form an alliance, bloc, or union. Instead, Iran, Italy, and Mexico are treated as a **founding analytical laboratory** through which the conditions necessary for a durable strategic network can be identified, tested, and potentially falsified. ## The Central Argument The book develops a four-condition analytical framework: **Recognition → Complementarity → Connectivity → Institutional Feasibility → Potential Strategic Compact** Recognition concerns the ability of states to establish meaningful dialogue and acknowledge one another as legitimate and potentially relevant partners. Complementarity concerns whether their capabilities and needs actually fit together—for example, across energy, technology, manufacturing, markets, infrastructure, and strategic geography. Connectivity asks whether that complementarity can be converted into practical relationships through ports, transportation corridors, maritime routes, digital infrastructure, technological networks, and other forms of physical and virtual connectivity. Institutional feasibility is the most demanding condition. It asks whether cooperation can survive the legal, political, financial, diplomatic, and strategic constraints imposed by existing alliances, treaties, sanctions regimes, economic agreements, and relationships with major powers. The framework therefore rejects the assumption that historical similarity or civilizational affinity automatically produces strategic cooperation. **Similarity may open the door to dialogue; complementarity creates the potential for exchange; connectivity makes exchange practical; and institutional feasibility determines whether cooperation can endure.** ## Why Iran, Italy, and Mexico? The selection of Iran, Italy, and Mexico is deliberately challenging. Iran represents a Eurasian and Persian Gulf gateway with significant energy resources and a strategic position connecting several regional systems. Italy represents a European and Mediterranean gateway with advanced manufacturing, engineering capabilities, institutional integration, and access to European markets. Mexico represents an American gateway with major manufacturing capacity, dual-ocean access, and deep integration into the North American economic system. Their differences are as important as their similarities. Italy operates within the European Union, NATO, and the G7; Mexico is deeply embedded in the USMCA-centered North American economy; and Iran faces extensive sanctions and a substantially different institutional and geopolitical environment. These constraints make the three-state configuration a demanding test rather than an easy case. The book also examines their civilizational memories and symbolic convergences—including the green-white-red tricolor of all three states—but deliberately treats these similarities as **points of entry for analysis rather than evidence of strategic compatibility**. ## From Civilizational Dialogue to Strategic Cooperation A major intellectual starting point of the project is the post-Cold War debate over civilizations, particularly the contrast between Samuel Huntington's *Clash of Civilizations* thesis and Mohammad Khatami's **Dialogue Among Civilizations** initiative. The book asks a question that lies beyond both approaches: **If civilizations can move from confrontation toward dialogue, what conditions are necessary for dialogue to produce something strategically consequential?** The project therefore attempts to construct a bridge between **civilizational recognition** and **functional strategic cooperation**. It does not treat civilization as a substitute for material interests, institutions, or capabilities. ## The Three Bilateral Relationships The proposed IMI network is examined through its three bilateral relationships: * **Iran–Italy:** examined as a relationship characterized by significant potential economic, technological, energy, and industrial complementarity but constrained by institutional and geopolitical realities.* **Italy–Mexico:** examined as the comparatively strongest and most institutionally feasible relationship within the triangle, particularly in technology, manufacturing, investment, and market connectivity.* **Mexico–Iran:** examined explicitly as the weakest leg of the triangle, where the book tests whether recognition and diplomatic relations can be converted into demonstrable strategic complementarity. This asymmetry is central to the project. The book does not attempt to conceal weak evidence in order to preserve the IMI hypothesis. Instead, **the weakness of a relationship becomes part of the empirical test of the theory.** ## From Triangle to Network The project subsequently moves beyond the original three-state case. Rather than proposing a fixed membership list, the book develops a **Node Qualification Framework** through which additional states can be evaluated according to recognition, complementarity, connectivity, and feasibility. Potential candidates—including states in Europe, the Mediterranean, Eurasia, South Asia, and Latin America—are examined not simply according to political alignment or symbolic affinity, but according to their measurable potential contribution to a wider network. The framework deliberately allows a candidate state to fail the test. A country can be globally important and still be poorly suited to the specific network; conversely, a smaller state may possess substantial network value because of its geography, energy resources, technology, manufacturing capacity, or connectivity. ## Beyond Traditional Blocs One of the book's broader theoretical propositions is that the emerging multipolar order should not be understood exclusively through traditional blocs. IMI is therefore conceived as a possible **network within networks** rather than a replacement for existing institutions such as the European Union, NATO, USMCA, BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, or the United Nations. The concept recognizes that states can simultaneously participate in different institutional and functional networks, with different relationships serving different strategic purposes. A state may belong to a major political or security institution while participating in a smaller, sector-specific network focused on technology, infrastructure, energy, manufacturing, digital connectivity, or space cooperation. ## Technology, Infrastructure, and Space The book extends the IMI concept beyond conventional diplomacy and trade. It examines the potential role of: * energy cooperation;* technology networks;* manufacturing partnerships;* strategic infrastructure;* ports and transportation corridors;* digital connectivity;* satellite applications and space cooperation;* distributed and resilient infrastructure. The space dimension is particularly important because the project treats connectivity as increasingly **multidimensional and vertical**, extending from terrestrial infrastructure into orbital systems. The book introduces the author's developing **Sangtarash Doctrine of Vertical Sovereignty** as an original theoretical framework concerning the relationship between ground infrastructure, connectivity, and orbital capabilities. It is explicitly presented as the author's developing contribution rather than as an established school of thought. ## Scenarios and the 2040 Test The book does not present IMI as an inevitable future outcome. Instead, it develops multiple scenarios ranging from a minimal form of functional cooperation to increasingly ambitious institutional and strategic configurations, including a scenario in which the IMI hypothesis fails. The **2040 Test** provides a longer-term framework for evaluating whether the conditions identified by the theory actually emerge. This makes the project not only a proposal for a possible strategic architecture but also an attempt to formulate a set of conditions against which its own argument can eventually be evaluated. ## The Broader Theoretical Contribution The ultimate objective of the book is to move from the specific case of Iran, Italy, and Mexico toward a broader theory of **networked multipolarity**. The central proposition is that an emerging multipolar international system may increasingly consist not only of large blocs and traditional alliances, but also of overlapping, functionally defined networks connecting states through specific combinations of energy, technology, manufacturing, markets, infrastructure, digital systems, and space capabilities. The IMI triangle therefore functions as the book's **founding test case rather than its final destination**. The project asks whether a difficult, asymmetric, intercontinental case can reveal a more general mechanism through which states can create strategic value without requiring comprehensive political