ECHOES OF WAR ACROSS THE SOUTH CAUCASUS
By Nicholas Clayton
Asia Times
Feb 2 2012
TBILISI, Georgia – As the standoff over Iran’s nuclear program
intensifies, South Caucasus leaders are pondering contingencies
since the consequences of open conflict or prolonged tensions are
potentially serious for all three nations.
Over the past several years, Iran has become an increasingly
influential player in the South Caucasus as Armenia, Azerbaijan and
Georgia have each sought to diversify their economic and political
ties away from their traditional alliances – none more so than Armenia,
which now relies on Iran as a major trading partner and investor.
However, with tensions on the rise in the Persian Gulf, and with
threats by Iran to disrupt oil supplies passing through the Strait
of Hormuz in retaliation for the sanctions that have been slapped
on it by various countries over its uranium-enrichment activities,
South Caucasus capitals are pondering what role they would play should
the standoff get hot.
While some analysts see opportunity for the region, others worry the
three small countries could get pulled into an unpredictable conflict.
Out of the three, Armenia is the most concerned with preserving the
status quo, said Sergey Minasyan, head of the Political Studies
Department at the Caucasus Institute in Yerevan, the capital and
largest city of Armenia. Minasyan said Armenia’s relationship with
Iran had been “a constant dynamic” since its 1991 independence.
Landlocked Armenia has been geographically isolated since its conflict
with Azerbaijan over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh in
the early 1990s, during which Turkey also cut ties and closed its
border with Armenia in support of its Turkic Azeri brethren.
At the time, despite their ideological differences, the Islamic
Republic backed Christian Armenia over Muslim Azerbaijan and, along
with Russia, has been a source of important political support.
Furthermore, about one-third of Armenia’s trade passes through Iranian
territory. Armenia’s only alternatives are land routes passing through
Georgia to Russia and the Black Sea, however, heavy snows and avalanche
threats regularly close the Armenia-Georgia and Georgia-Russia border
crossings.
Iran has also been a key investor in Armenian business and
infrastructure, feeding the country natural gas through a recently
completed pipeline and an oil pipeline is in the works. Yerevan views
these links as key to preventing a near total dependence on Russia
for commerce.
In its 2011 report, “Without Illusions”, the Yerevan-based Civilitas
Foundation said that both the Karabakh war and the supply disruptions
caused by the 2008 Russia-Georgia war proved that Armenia’s “only
reliable access to the world was through Iran”.
Minasyan said Armenia had also served as a “proxy” for Iran in
developing business and political contacts in ways that bypass its
official isolation.
Still, Minasyan said that amid the occasionally violent stalemate with
Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, the biggest consequences for Armenia
of a weakened or preoccupied Iran would be political, not economic.
“For the medium term, it would be possible to replace that trade
using Georgian routes. But the more important – the more dangerous –
would be the geopolitical results of closing the border if something
happened in Iran. On the other hand, another very important issue is
that not only Armenia is afraid of the possible consequences of a new
crisis with Iran. For Azerbaijan, it’s also a problem. Some experts
are thinking that we will have a crisis in Karabakh if something
happens in Iran, but politicians and experts in Azerbaijan are more
afraid of that outcome than in Armenia,” he said.
Indeed, Azerbaijan’s rocky relationship with Iran has hit an
historic low in recent months. Iran has long warned Azerbaijan
against exploiting energy resources near Iran’s Caspian waters, and,
in 2001, used military force to halt a BP-sponsored project near the
dividing line.
Since then, the two have traded barbs over ideological differences
related to Azerbaijan’s stolidly secular observance of Sunni Islam,
and Iran’s devotion to theocratic Shi’ite governance. Iran also worries
that Azerbaijan might play on the discontent among Iran’s sizable,
but repressed ethnic Azeri minority.
Last month, Azerbaijani government websites were hit by a wave a
cyber-attacks, which were responded to in turn with attacks against
Iranian state websites. Then, on January 25, Baku announced it had
foiled an Iranian plot to assassinate the Israeli ambassador to
Azerbaijan and attack a Jewish religious school in the country.
The suspects were captured after one allegedly met with his handlers
in northern Iran and was promised US$160,000 for the mission. The
capture came days after top Iranian officials had promised retribution
for the assassination of a prominent Iranian nuclear scientist, and
bore a striking resemblance to Iran’s alleged plot to kill the Saudi
ambassador to the United States.
Iran regularly accuses Azerbaijan of collaborating militarily with
both the US and Israel.
After the nuclear scientist was killed, an intelligence official in
Tehran was quoted as saying, “None of those who ordered these attacks
should feel safe anywhere.”
Stephen Blank, a research professor at the United States Army War
College, said that the threats Iran regularly made to Azerbaijan should
be taken seriously, including those saying that the country would be
“targeted and destroyed” if it allowed the US or it’s allies to use
Azerbaijani territory or air bases for an attack against Iran.
Azerbaijani airspace is already a key link in the Northern Distribution
Network supplying North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and
coalition forces in Afghanistan, and Azerbaijan has signed a number
of defense deals with Israel, but none of these arrangements were
directed against Iran thus far, Blank said.
That may not matter, however.
“I think Iran is driven by a different calculus. I don’t want to
leave anyone with the impression that we are dealing with people
who are deranged, because they’re not. But […] Iran is driven by
this kind of obsession of anti-Semitism and anti-Sunni thinking and
I think it manifests itself in their policy,” Blank said. “Second,
they have discovered that terrorism is an instrument that works.”
Lincoln Mitchell, a professor at Columbia University’s School of
International and Public Affairs, said, on the contrary, that the
region would stand to benefit from a US-Iranian escalation because it
“puts [the South Caucasus countries] in the driver’s seat, particularly
Azerbaijan, with its relationship with the US”.
“Azerbaijan plays a make-or-break role in this, and Azerbaijan can
make any attempt by the United States to do anything in Iran extremely
difficult, or it can make it considerably easier. So, the growing
tension between Iran and the United States gives far more leverage –
particularly to Azerbaijan – than they have now,” he said.
Mitchell said that in increasing its utility to the US, Azerbaijan
could alleviate Western pressure on Baku over democracy and
human-rights issues.
Georgia, while it does not share a border with Iran, may also come
into play.
Since coming to power in the 2003 “Rose” revolution, President Mikheil
Saakashvili has placed NATO membership at the forefront of his foreign
policy agenda. After Georgia’s brief war with Russia in 2008, those
aspirations appeared to be dashed, but Saakashvili has not given
up hope, deploying as many as 1,700 soldiers in Afghanistan’s most
violent province as a part of the NATO war effort.
However, Georgia has also sought to strengthen its ties with Iran
since the war, signing a visa-free travel agreement with the Islamic
Republic and opening up greater economic, academic and commercial
links in various agreements with Tehran.
Still, Mitchell, who worked as the chief of party at the National
Democratic Institute’s office in Georgia from 2002-2004 and has
authored a book on the Saakashvili regime, said that Georgia would
likely acquiesce to any requests by Washington to use Georgian
territory in support of American operations against Iran.
In an election year, Georgian opposition politicians and former
Georgian president Eduard Shevarnadze have publicly accused Saakashvili
of potentially dragging the country into a war with neighboring
Iran. But David Smith, a senior fellow at the Georgian Foundation
for Strategic and International Studies in Tbilisi, said such claims
“are reaching really far” and attributed the worries to political
polemicists.
Blank said that while there had been very few statements made about
the situation publicly, officials in all three countries were nervous
about the rising tensions.
“They are clearly concerned, as are the Russians, about the fact that
they’re being dragged into a contingency outside their area that they
don’t really have anything to say about,” he said.
Russia has responded to the standoff by announcing military exercises
in the North and South Caucasus that are unprecedented in scale. While
Russia regularly runs military drills in the North Caucasus, the
“Kavkaz-2012” maneuvers will also involve Russian units in Armenia and
the Georgian breakaway republic of Abkhazia. It had also reinforced
its military presence throughout the North and South Caucasus for an
indefinite term in response to the crisis, Blank said.
Over the past year, Russian officials have often warned that
foreign intervention in either Syria or Iran could lead to a “wider
conflict” in the region. Viewing both Syria and Iran as countries
on the periphery of its spheres of influence, Blank said Russia
was now attempting to reassert its claim over the South Caucasus,
its traditional buffer zone against the Middle East.
With the baseline of regional tensions raised, Mitchell said that the
rhetoric in both Russia and Georgia would likely turn increasingly
more provocative, as both countries’ leaders had a track record of
using external distractions to boost their personal popularity.
While most of talk remains just that, he said the confluence of the
regional events could lead to “a potentially explosive situation”.
So far, the South Caucasus has been exempted from pressure to freeze
its relations with Iran. Azerbaijan was even granted a special
exemption as European officials and energy lobbyists convinced the US
Congress not to include the development of Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz
natural gas field in its list of forbidden economic activities with
Tehran, although the Islamic Republic owns a 10% stake in the venture.
However, Blank said that the South Caucasus should not count on being
able to stay neutral forever.
“I think they will come under pressure to move back from their
relationship with Iran if the situation continues to remain at a high
level of tension. On the other hand, I think a war would be a worse
contingency for them,” he said.
Nicholas Clayton is a Tbilisi-based journalist and blogger
covering the Caucasus and the world. His blog can be found at
From: Baghdasarian
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/NB03Ag01.html
http://www.threekingsblog.com/.