Pashinyan and His Administration Are Traveling on A Path of Self-Deceit and Destruction, Unless…

Armenians all over the world were stunned to observe that all our “Western friends,” profoundly concerned with the Azeri oil, cheerfully praised the handing over of Artsakh to the despotic and genocidal country of Azerbaijan. Any real concern over the need for historic and humanitarian justice towards Armenians was put completely aside! It was thus confirmed once more that international politics is devoid of such naive and mostly “annoying” concepts.

Yet even after such dramatic failure, Pashinyan is still pathetically chasing his beloved objective of signing his “All saving peace treaty” with Azerbaijan. Actually, he seems to have now discovered an even more pathetically naive concept for the protection of Armenia’s borders. He expects to work out a cadastral map with Azerbaijan, presumably just like the one he has for his private house with the Yerevan city authorities, to secure the definitive borders of Armenia, with its mafia-ruled Azeri neighbors.

Pashinyan and his followers better realize that such piles of documents are totally worthless for a nation’s protection without the backing of a strong military defense structure which thus far, they apparently have completely neglected.

When Aliyev, openly and consistently supported by its big brother Turkey, decides at his own pleasure, to wipe out the 120,000 Armenians of Artsakh from their ancestral territory, and then also decides to grab another small or large chunk of Armenian territory, does Pashinyan expect to succeed stopping the aggressors by waving those peace treaty and cadastral map documents at the face of the invading Azeri butchers’ tanks and drones? Furthermore, if Pashinyan or anyone else perhaps expects that some of the abovementioned Azeri oil bribed countries will send their armies to Armenia’s rescue, they better be ready for a big disappointment.

Fellow Armenians, we are living currently in unprecedentedly fateful times of our nation’s contemporary history. We bear the collective responsibility for the future of our nation. Future generations will either praise or curse us, all depending on the actions we shall take now to prevent the potentially complete elimination of Armenian statehood on our historic lands.

Pashinyan and his administration are currently traveling on a catastrophic path of self-deceit and capitulation, unless the entire nation succeeds in standing up and preventing that catastrophe from happening.

Multipronged diplomatic efforts must certainly continue to be pursued, except that they must be honorable and based on self-respect. However, such efforts can be only one component of a well worked out multilayered national strategy.

Certainly, honorable and self-respecting does not qualify the defeatist and mafia-appeasing approach that Pashinyan has shown so far towards Erdogan and Aliyev. Quite to the contrary, his current behavior will assuredly embolden such despots to push for even more humiliating concessions, in return for nothing given to Armenians.

When Turkey closed its air space to Armenian flights by demanding that the Nemesis monument dedicated to Armenian heroes be dismantled in Yerevan, Pashinyan acquiesced by calling the erection of that monument a “mistake.” Even worse, quite incredibly, his High Commissioner of the Diaspora, Zareh Sinanyan, arrogantly declared last week in the National Assembly that Armenian efforts for genocide recognition by Turkey are now “outdated” and “must be abandoned.” Arrogant Sinanyan obviously understands nothing about Armenian national sanctities and even less about the diaspora. To top it all, Pashinyan just rushed to Ankara to pay his respects to the newly elected despot Erdogan. To justify his haste, he claimed that in the middle of that multinational crowded gathering he will be begging for a few minutes of so-called “consultations,” which surely never took place. Such behavior is far from being honorable. It is actually embarrassing and counterproductive for Armenians.

To be able to successfully conduct a strategy of honorable diplomatic negotiations, Armenian authorities, whether they are headed by Pashinyan or when the latter is democratically replaced by a more capable new leader, must develop without delay, two presently missing essential components to their otherwise seriously defective current strategy.

First, Armenia must develop without delay an effective international news media agency, capable of constantly influencing and shaping international public opinion by voicing consistently Armenian viewpoints and arguments concerning history and the daily events.

The major victim of this deficiency today is Artsakh. The legitimate right of Artsakh to exist as an independent Armenian republic was acquired as early as in 1990, when it successfully held on December 10 the legally required referendum to separate from the Soviet Union. In the absence of effective Armenian media support, that undisputable fact is now completely forgotten. In addition, the argument that given the obvious Azeri genocidal behavior towards Armenians, Artsakh has the full right to request the Kosovo model precedent, for separation from Azerbaijan, has never been forcefully advanced nor promoted in international forums.

The second and actually the most serious deficiency of Armenian diplomacy, is the lack of a relentless effort to build Armenia’s own military readiness to counter with punitive intensity any incursion on its borders. This effort needs to be today’s overwhelming priority for Armenia. The current regime as much as all the previous ones are seriously accountable and guilty for their neglect to maintain Armenia’s defense system at a state of highest sophistication and 24-hour readiness on every day of their administration.

All excuses or arguments about having been hindered by some mysterious political obstacle is simply void and unacceptable. Armenia was, and now is, capable of both creating its own inhouse military industry, as well as creating channels of supply from the outside world. When there is a will, there is a way. Without being privy to any particularly privileged information I happen to be able to confirm the validity of those statements.

The question that now begs to be answered is, what is it that prevents Armenia’s present administration from implementing immediately a serious emergency program to correct the above deficiencies?

There are conceivably some difficulties. However, the one evident and most important reason is the failure of today’s administration to establish as much of a moral as a structural real and practical collaboration and coordination between the three inseparable components of the Armenian nation, Armenia, Artsakh and diaspora.

Going back to where we started in the celebratory years of Armenia’s independence, followed by Artsakh’s own independence and victorious war of the 1990s, Artsakh was inseparable from Armenia, and the diaspora was wholeheartedly and enthusiastically engaged in support of its newly found dual homelands. That relationship is now broken. It has unfortunately now fallen to a level of quasi-desperation and emotional isolation among the three core components of our nation.

The Yerevan-based Armenian government is the only entity that is equipped and has the moral authority and obligation to bring those three components back together. It needs, however, to act immediately by declaring that effort an act of national emergency. This needs to be carried out with participants working in a quiet and serious environment. Discrete planning and the identification of well-targeted concrete objectives must take complete precedence over speeches and show chasing antiquated manifestations.

To succeed, this needs to be a serious long range and permanent effort.

When Armenia’s authorities show themselves capable to confront such a national challenge, there are good reasons to expect that much needed human and financial resources will become available, and the Armenian nation will then be capable of conducting truly honorable diplomatic international negotiations. Such negotiations will then be successful as they will be continuously supported by an effective international opinion-shaping news media, and they will be strongly backed by a sophisticated and impenetrable military defense structure that will defy any incursions in Armenian territories.

We need to show the strength of our national will.

Aliyev will then rapidly go back to his private business and will forget all about Artsakh and unfulfilled dreams of territories further to the west.