On 21 May, Republican congressman Joe Wilson spoke at the Hudson Institute during an event on Georgia, focusing on what participants described as growing Iranian influence in the country under the rule of the Georgian Dream party and moves towards authoritarianism.
According to Joe Wilson, the establishment of what he described as “mafia-style” control over Georgia by “oligarch [Bidzina] Ivanishvili, a friend of war criminal Putin”, has had damaging consequences for US strategic interests and for what he called the “courageous” Georgian people.
Alongside Wilson, the event also featured Giorgi Kandelaki, project manager at the Soviet Past Research Laboratory, and Luke Coffey, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. Both are co-authors of a study examining Iranian influence in Georgia.
Joe Wilson said: “Georgian Dream supports Tehran’s terrorist regime. In February 2026, a foreign minister representing Georgian Dream attended an event at the Iranian embassy marking the anniversary of the 1979 Iranian Revolution. The government overthrown by that revolution was replaced by a regime that has been at war with Western civilisation for 47 years.
Furthermore, the Tbilisi TV tower was illuminated in the colours of the Iranian flag — an appalling display of respect towards a totalitarian dictatorship. A representative of the Georgian Dream government also publicly signed a condolence book at the Iranian embassy, expressing sympathy over the death of dictator Khamenei and condemning American strikes against Iran, which were aimed at preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
Mourning Khamenei in the same year that he killed 50,000 Iranian citizens is simply unimaginable, but it says a great deal about the orientation of the Georgian Dream government.
In the current conflict, Georgian Dream assisted Iran by allowing Russian military transport aircraft to use Georgian airspace en route to Iran. Those planes carried supplies intended to support the Iranian regime and undermine the authority of President Trump, who has been successful in reconciling other countries — who would ever have imagined two former Soviet republics, Armenia and Azerbaijan, with President Aliyev and Prime Minister Pashinyan, together in the Oval Office? That too is a certain achievement.
However, what they are doing amounts to undermining progress achieved in the Caucasus. Georgian Dream has also facilitated the activities of Iranian charitable foundations, helping strengthen loyalty to Iran’s political theology and contributing to the radicalisation of Iran’s Shia community. Georgia’s state religious institutions have even hosted senior ayatollahs from the Iranian regime who chanted ‘Death to America’.
Georgian Dream has also deepened economic ties with Iran, increasing trade between the countries to $322m and gradually turning Iran into a hub for sanctions circumvention. Added to this is the transfer of a Black Sea port under the responsibility and control of the Chinese Communist Party, with implications extending to Central Asian countries as well.”
Joe Wilson on Georgian Dream and Iran
