Interestingly, in terms of alliances, 'Christian' Armenia has
been allied with Post-Soviet Russia while the Azeris find a natural ally in the
Turks. Turkey has supported Azerbaijan and with the fall of the USSR, Baku was quickly
brought into the American orbit. Oil riches played no small part in the US
desire to woo Azerbaijan. But perhaps even more than the oil, it is
Azerbaijan's location that continues to be desirable.
And yet it gets even more complicated.
The Azeri homeland is split between the former Soviet
republic of Azerbaijan and Iranian Azerbaijan centered on the city of Tabriz.
There's a large Azeri (Turkic speaking) population in Northwest Iran. The
border is artificial a result of early Cold War schemes and averted conflict.
While we don't hear about Kurds or internal troubles within
Iran, there is also a substantial Kurdish population along the northwestern
border with Iraq. Tehran is careful to make sure it doesn't unnecessarily antagonise
its western minorities, the Kurds and Azeris. Azerbaijan is mostly Shiite which
means they look (in part) toward Tehran for spiritual leadership. But, they're
a mostly secular nation that finds its identity in its Turkishness.
The Azeris are caught in the middle of a tug-of-war between
two of the culturally dominant strains of Islam.
And indeed there has been something of a cultural tug-of-war,
the funding of schools, mosques and other interest as both sides vie for
influence.
And yet it would seem the Turkish-US side has mostly won the
day. Azerbaijan and Iran now eye each other with suspicion. The Armenians who
hate the Turks because of their history with them and in particular the WWI-era
genocide, ally with Turkey's old enemies, Russia and Iran. I know that's a
little troubling to American Christians who want to champion the ethnic
Christian groups of the Middle East. The same is true with regard to Syria and
the Christian support for the Assad regime. The Armenians and Syriac Christians
who live in Syria universally support Assad. Iran also has a substantial
Armenian population and the Armenians get on rather well with Tehran, even
after the 1979 Revolution. Many Armenians served in the Iranian forces during
the Iraq-Iran War.
The United States won't officially acknowledge the genocide.
It's a very touchy subject for the Turks. Though they have dominated Anatolia
for about one thousand years they are the newcomers and if the genocide is
acknowledged there are valid claims with regard to land and reparations. The
whole of Eastern Turkey is rightly claimed by the Armenians, Kurds and
Assyrians. The Greeks of course would lay claim to the whole of Turkey's Black
Sea and Aegean coastlines which they inhabited for nigh on three-thousand years
before their expulsion a century ago.
The US desperately wants Turkey within its orbit. It position
is critical to control of the Mediterranean, the Middle East and as a means to
contain Russia. The US was eager to bring Turkey into NATO and did so early on
in 1952.
This means Armenia is the big loser. The Armenians sit in
their tiny Transcaucasian republic gazing at Mt. Ararat and their vast ancient
homeland which lies beyond. And in that homeland their archaeological heritage
is being slowly dismantled and erased from history. And yet the Armenians are
sometimes compared to the Jews. They have a large exile community spread around
the world and like the Jews they tend to be successful, very energetic
achievers and have a penchant for business. In other words they have a lot of
money and wield a type of influence in many places. The Armenian lobby in the
United States continues to put pressure on Washington and of course America has
to maintain its narrative about freedom and being the champion of all that is
right in the world.
This came to a head in the 1990s as the Azeris were becoming
American allies. The Nagorno-Karabakh War was raging and there was a lot of
pressure on Washington to back off supporting Azerbaijan and instead support
peace.
Officially the United States only sells military hardware to
Azerbaijan that's related to Caspian security. This is basically a move against
Iran and a means to lay claim to transit routes for oil and gas.
But the Azeris continue to build their military. Who is
fulfilling the role the United States decided to pass on?
It's very simple. Israel sells arms to Azerbaijan and on a
large scale.
Of course the Israelis get many of their arms from the United
States. It's rather convenient. The US gets to accomplish its goals, make
money, wield influence and yet can maintain a degree of plausible deniability.
Israel is one of several countries that serve as an American proxy.
What is particularly scandalous is that many in the Middle
East know about these arrangements and these deals that Israel is involved in.
Everyone knows the United States has a hand in the arrangement and this
furthers the anger... the very rage that so few Americans can understand.
They're not aware of what their government is doing.
The American media will not report on these types of issues.
If the US media was truly 'liberal' then certainly it would aggressively pursue
these stories to expose Washington's militarism and imperialism. Only the
alternative media dares to dive into these stories. And yet even on this point
the true American Left has been largely subverted by domestic concerns and has
fallen into 'identity' politics, leaving much of the US Left ignorant and uninterested
in international issues. In addition both Left and Right-wing versions of the
alternative media are divided on the question of Israel which further
complicates reporting on these issues.
Muslim nations are subverted and do business with the Israeli
state, the very people who oppress Muslims. These Muslim nations are corrupted
by Western and Zionist enticements... at least that's how it is perceived.
Meanwhile the people in nations like Azerbaijan live under quasi-dictatorship,
rights are suppressed and they see a ruling class literally raking in the
money.
Of course Israel has reached out to Azerbaijan for other
reasons as well. They have expanded trade, are purchasing oil, and secretly
Azerbaijan has become a staging ground for spying on Iran and for possible air
strikes. Azerbaijan has become a place of intrigue. There are spies and stories
of assassination squads. And of course it is a major hub in the drug trade
flowing out of Asia into Russia and the rest of Europe.
The US is happy to have it so because it serves their
interests but it hardly fits the narrative of the nation that stands for peace,
stability and virtue.
It is possible that the Israel-Azerbaijan relationship has
flourished outside the officially endorsed circle of the State Department. The
American Deep State, the Praetorians will sometimes work to foster these types
of arrangements and then work to keep a lot of what they're doing secret from
official circles. The fact that characters like General Secord as early as 1991
were haunting Baku representing an oil company and recruiting and training
mercenaries indicates elements in the US government were very keen to pull
Azerbaijan into the US orbit and almost immediately as the USSR collapsed. For
those who don't recall Secord was involved in the CIA secret war in Laos and
worked with Oliver North on the scheme that became the Iran-Contra Scandal.
This ties in with a larger story of American backed Jihadis
in both the Nagorno-Karabakh War and the ongoing insurgency in Chechnya. Though
the American public is unaware of this story you can be sure Putin knows it all
too well.
Until recently the relationship with Turkey under Erdogan was
on shaky ground. It's been somewhat remedied by recent deals with both the
United States and EU but Erdogan knows all too well the tide could shift once
more. At one point a few years ago the Turkish-Israel relationship was severely
damaged. The fact that the US and the Israelis were cultivating such close ties
with Azerbaijan was also viewed as a hostile move against Turkey, subverting
and curtailing its regional influence. The US continues to support Turkish
elements that seek Erdogan's removal. He's viewed as a traitor to the Kemalist
ideals that formed the modern state of Turkey in 1923.
It would be a mistake to assume all is well now, but the
degeneration of Turco-Russian relations, the EU's massive cash deal for Turkey
with regard to the refugees, a patch-up with Tel Aviv, and US moves in Turkish
favour with regard to Syria and the Kurds have at least calmed things down and
apparently given Erdogan some (albeit limited) peace of mind. A Syria partition
and the emergence of a Kurdistan will lead to an unleashing of war, but at
present that has been averted. The Kurds will likely be disappointed once more,
used and thrown away by the United States. The Iraqi Kurds have the best shot
at autonomy. As Iraq splinters, they continue to become a de facto independent
state.
That said, there are things afoot in the region that I'm sure
are making everyone lose sleep. Much more could be said, but it's interesting
that this little 'flare-up' in Transcaucasia cannot be divorced from the wider
circle of issue affecting the region that stretches from the Bosphorus to the
Brahmaputra.
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