Shared Security or the Logic of ‘If It Doesn’t Boil for Me…’? — S. Rouzbeh

At the United Nations General Assembly, Masoud Pezeshkian said: “No one in this region will be secure on their own. Either we will build security together, or we will endure insecurity together.” In the same speech, he stressed that Iran would not accept “nuclear knowledge” being monopolised by a handful of countries, and said Tehran was ready for dialogue but would not accept the “language of force”.

At first glance, the first part of his remarks about security may seem reasonable. War, energy crises, migration, terrorism and economic instability know no borders. The security of a country in the Middle East can directly affect its neighbours. The war in Afghanistan has had, and continues to have, far-reaching consequences for the people of Iran. But the second half of the sentence raises another question: “Or we will endure insecurity together.” Is this merely a description of how insecurity naturally spreads, or does it also carry the message that if Iran is not secure, others will not be secure either?

This distinction matters, because “shared security” has a specific meaning in international political discourse. Its modern conception dates back at least to the 1982 Palme Commission report: lasting security cannot be built solely against others. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe later emphasised the same principle: each state’s security is linked to that of others, but no country should strengthen its own security at the expense of other countries’ security.

In other words, shared security says: “My security is not sustainable without yours.” But another proposition can also be constructed: “If I am not secure, you should not be either.” The two sentences seem similar, but politically and legally they are not the same.

It is not the elegance of the phrase, but a state’s actions that reveal where the line between these two interpretations lies: does it try to contain a crisis, or does it transfer the cost of its own crisis to its neighbours?

To understand why this distinction is sensitive, there is no need to go far back. In 2018, when the United States was seeking to reduce Iran’s oil exports, Hassan Rouhani warned that if Iran’s oil could not be exported, the oil of other countries in the region would not be exported either. A few weeks later, Ali Khamenei endorsed this statement, saying that it reflected “the policy and approach of the system”.

The structure of that message was clear: if the path for Iran’s oil exports is closed, others should not be sure that their exports will continue either. In colloquial Persian, the proverb “If the pot doesn’t boil for me…” conveys almost exactly this logic. And the proverb can bring a political question into focus: is Pezeshkian’s new statement a continuation of that same logic, this time not about oil but about security?

The first question begins here: if what is meant is “shared security”, why is the emphasis on cooperation paired with the phrase “we will endure insecurity together”?

This question becomes more important when we hear the sentence against the backdrop of recent events in the region. On 11 March 2026, the Security Council adopted Resolution 2817 by 13 votes in favour, none against and two abstentions, and condemned Iran’s attacks on Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan. The resolution also condemned Iran’s actions or threats to close or disrupt international shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. The countries of the region, therefore, do not hear the Iranian president’s words in a historical vacuum.

For this reason, a statement that Tehran presents as an invitation to cooperation may be heard in another capital as a kind of warning.

But the issue is not only one of political interpretation. Article 2(4) of the Charter of the United Nations prohibits states from threatening or using force against the territorial integrity or political independence of other states. Iran’s dispute with the United States or Israel does not, in itself, make neighbouring countries parties to that conflict. Each country’s situation, its role in military operations and the rules governing self-defence must be examined separately.

The International Court of Justice also stated in its 1996 advisory opinion that “threat” and “use of force” are not separate from one another: if a use of force would be unlawful in the circumstances in question, a threat to undertake the same action may also be unlawful.

The second question: if a country says its security cannot be separated from that of its neighbours, should its first responsibility not be to prevent its own conflict from spreading to those very neighbours?

Here, perhaps the image of a “shared boat” is more precise than the proverb about the pot. Everyone aboard a boat knows that a hole in its hull could sink them all. That is the logic of shared security. But there is a difference between “the boat springing a leak” and “putting a hole in the boat”. One warns of a shared danger; the other turns shared danger into a tool of pressure.

If one passenger’s cabin is filling with water, their responsibility is to try to seal the breach, not to say that because they are in danger, everyone else should get wet too.

So the central issue is not a proverb, but the definition of security. Does shared security mean that countries are responsible for preventing crises from spreading, or can other people’s insecurity be raised as leverage to secure one’s own safety?

And the final question:

When a government says, “Either we will have security together, or we will have insecurity together,” is it speaking of a shared fate, or reminding its neighbours that if it becomes insecure, their security too may be put at risk?

S. Rouzbeh