Conflict in the Caucasus may not be over
Azerbaijan’s takeover of Nagorno-Karabakh
has unleashed a grab bag of regional rivalries that have the potential to turn hostile.
"Following Azerbaijan’s victory, there was a mass exodus of Armenians from Karabakh and the creation of a severe humanitarian crisis that reminded some of the Armenians’ flight from the Ottoman Empire during 1915-16 when as many as a million people died or were killed — considered a genocide by Armenians and part of World War I’s tragic collateral damage by the Turks."
Revelation 17:8-11
8 The beast, which you saw, once was, now is not, and yet will come up out of the Abyss and go to its destruction. The inhabitants of the earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the creation of the world will be astonished when they see the beast, because it once was, now is not, and yet will come.
9 “This calls for a mind with wisdom. The seven heads are seven hills on which the woman sits. 10 They are also seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come; but when he does come, he must remain for only a little while. 11 The beast who once was, and now is not, is an eighth king. He belongs to the seven and is going to his destruction.
"Other factors relate to the disparity in Armenia’s and Azerbaijan’s size, population, and resources. Unlike Armenia, which has few natural resources, Azerbaijan is an energy-rich country and thus capable of spending large sums on arms."
"Lastly, international and regional geopolitical rivalries and Armenia’s vulnerable geopolitical position contributed to its ultimate defeat. Among these factors were the larger Russia-West rivalry for control of Eurasia and Washington’s 30-year-old efforts to contain and isolate Iran by denying Tehran any role in the emerging post-Cold War economic and security structures of the Southern Caucasus, most importantly in the construction of pipelines to transport oil and gas from Azerbaijan, the Caspian Sea, and Central Asia to Western markets."
"To accomplish this aim, the U.S. and Europe effectively assigned a leading role to Turkey in the Caucasus and Central Asia both as a model to be emulated by the Central Asian states and as the West’s major regional partner. Perhaps, at the time, Armenia should have seen the writing on the wall and aligned itself more closely with the West while seeking some form of accommodation with Turkey. But given Armenians’ history with the Ottomans and Turkey, this was not easy to do, and Yerevan chose to align itself more closely to Russia instead."
"Yet, despite religious and cultural bonds with the West and a politically active Diaspora community, particularly in France and the U.S., Yerevan’s closer ties to Moscow resulted in a lingering Western distrust. And, as time went on, the lure of Azerbaijan’s energy resources became too strong for the West to resist."
The regional involvement of Israel, the Middle East’s most important military power and a sworn enemy of the Islamic Republic, has further complicated matters. As a minority state in the Muslim world that was itself born in part as a result of the Nazi genocide against the Jews in Europe, Israel should theoretically have felt a natural affinity for Armenia. But a desire to expand its diplomatic relations with Muslim states (long before the 2020 Abraham Accords), the lure of energy resources and markets, and its hostility toward Iran have pulled Israel ever closer to Azerbaijan.
"Over time, Israel became a key supplier of weapons for Baku, providing it with as much as 69 percent of its total arms imports, including some of its most advanced weapons systems, between 2016 and 2020, a trend that intensified significantly as Azerbaijan prepared its offensive to take Karabakh. Moreover, Baku’s principal patron and mentor, Turkey, which has its own regional ambitions, supplied additional weaponry and assistance, even to the extent of reportedly providing Syrian mercenaries for Baku to fight in Karabakh during the 2020 Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict."
(They (Turkey) supplied fighters in the Libyan conflict as well.
Reconstituted Ottoman Empire much?)
"Since Ottoman times, Turkey has coveted what is now the Republic of Azerbaijan, as well as the Iranian province of Azerbaijan. Pan-Turkist and neo-Ottoman forces, with which President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is identified, have long wanted to create a land bridge between, first, Turkey and Azerbaijan, and subsequently through northern Iran to Central Asia. In this way, Turkey hopes to realize a direct land route to link all Turkic peoples."
Relation 17:8
The beast, which you saw, once was, now is not, and yet will come up out of the Abyss and go to its destruction.
"Azerbaijan’s conquest of Karabakh marks the first step towards this goal. Now, Turkey is insisting on the creation of a land corridor between Azerbaijan and Nakhicevan, an Azerbaijani exclave bounded by Armenia, Iran and Turkey. This would amount to the incorporation of what the Armenians call Syunik and the Azerbaijanis call Zangezur into Azerbaijan, thus bypassing Iran. In a demonstration of Turkey’s aims, Erdoğan himself visited Nakhichevan for a meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on September 25, two weeks before Baku’s Karabakh offensive, and talked about the opening of the so-called Zangezur Corridor.
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