Armenia Becomes Collateral Damage in Iran-Turkey Standoff

Now come the military drills in Baku, with joint forces of Turkey, Azerbaijan and Pakistan, followed by wargames with the joint forces of Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia, and the last one planned for October 5-8, to take place in Nakhichevan with the military forces of Turkey and Azerbaijan. One could rightfully wonder why so much militarization in the region in such a short span of time, if there is no war planned in the immediate future?

Of course, these threatening military movements have rightfully alarmed the regime in Iran, which began flexing its own military muscles by conducting massive military exercises on Azerbaijan’s borders, to which President Aliyev expressed his surprise.

Baku began its provocation by taxing Iranian cargo trucks moving along the 21 kilometers of road recently acquired by Azerbaijan in Armenian territory. Then came the arrest of two Iranian truck drivers still held captive in Azerbaijan. Adding insult to injury, there was an attack on the Iranian Embassy in Baku. Nothing happens spontaneously in an authoritarian country like Azerbaijan. All these incidents were coupled with vitriolic exchanges between the two capitals.

On September 17 Iranian cleric Ayatollah Hassan Ameli said, “Since Azerbaijan and Turkey did not respect Iran’s right as a neighbor, we ask the Supreme National Security Council to allow Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps to demonstrate just one-half of Iran’s power on this side of the border to tell them, ‘Do not play with the lion’s tail.’”

The response from Azerbaijan’s official quarters was “We will cut that tail.” So escalates the rhetoric.

Armenia is caught in this melee unprepared.

Azerbaijan and Turkey have been pushing their version of the November 9 peace treaty and for the beginning of demarcation and delineation between the two countries. Armenia is the clear loser in this scenario. This policy on one hand will entail Armenia’s recognition of Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity with no status for Karabakh and on the other side, the ceding of the “Zangezur Corridor” through Armenia’s sovereign territory to Azerbaijan.

Although Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and National Security Secretary Armen Grigoryan have been insisting that the corridor issue is not on the agenda of discussion, the Iranian government is not fully convinced, nor is the population in Armenia. All these political shenanigans are played out in plain view of the Kremlin, which is keeping a treacherous silence.

Opposing a corridor through Armenia, Tehran offered its own territory to Azerbaijan to have access to the Nakhichevan exclave. But there were no takers in Baku. Today, Tehran has officially declared that any border change in the region is a red line for Tehran.

Israel has had a presence in Azerbaijan for almost 30 years. The regime in Iran was cognizant of that fact but it never expressed its concerns as forcefully as it is doing these days because with the expansion of the border with Azerbaijan, Israel’s capacity to threaten Iran has grown exponentially.

Also, the Tehran government does not believe that Armenia can or is willing to defend its own territorial integrity and that is why it is taking responsibility for its own country’s security.

All along, Tehran and Yerevan have maintained good neighborly relations. But recently some concerns were expressed in Tehran and even the pro-government paper Keyhan accused Armenia of colluding with the West in a plot against Iran. Prime Minister Pashinyan assured Iran publicly at a press conference in Lithuania that Armenia cannot and will not plot against Iran. As if that were not enough, he dispatched Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan to reassure the leaders in Tehran that Armenia does not have such an intention.

This suspicion arose with the growing belief in Tehran that the Pashinyan administration is exercising a pro-Western policy. Turkey and the US may be at odds politically, Israel may frown on Erdogan’s belligerent rhetoric, and Azerbaijan may be hostage to Turkey, but all their goals converge at one point, which is the dismemberment of Iran along its ethnic fault lines. Should that happen one day, the fallout would be disastrous for the entire region.

Will Armenia’s inept and inexperienced government be able to navigate through these troubled waters and save Armenia? That remains anyone’s guess. One thing is obvious, that rather than seeking internal solidarity to withstand outside pressures, the government is arresting former military leaders and opposition leaders, deepening the polarization in the country.

Cautious thinkers are deeply concerned that the demise of the country is not too far.