Azerbaijan Snubs the West
By Joshua Kuchera
Jan. 8, 2015
[Joshua Kucera is a journalist and author of The Bug Pit, a blog on
military and security issues in Eurasia.]
On Dec. 26, authorities in Azerbaijan raided the local bureau of Radio
Free Europe/Radio Liberty, a U.S. government-funded service, seizing
computers and ordering the office shut down. Earlier that month,
police had arrested Khadija Ismayilova, a RFE/RL reporter and the
country’s most prominent investigative journalist, on dubious charges
of inciting someone to commit suicide. (The alleged victim has since
recanted the accusation, but Ms. Ismayilova remains in jail.)
These events have been reported abroad largely as marking a further
constriction in Azerbaijan’s already tiny space for alternative points
of view. And they are that. But they also suggest a dramatic change in
the geopolitics of the volatile Caspian Sea region: the Azerbaijani
government’s growing hostility toward Washington.
Azerbaijan is in a prime location, wedged between Russia and Iran on
the oil- and gas-rich Caspian Sea. Since gaining independence from the
Soviet Union in 1991, it has been a strong partner of the United
States. It has worked with Washington to break Russia’s energy
monopoly in the region by supporting the construction of oil and gas
pipelines to Turkey. It is a key transit point for military cargo to
and from Afghanistan. And the government in Baku has forged close ties
with Israel, based primarily on the trade of weaponry and oil.
A 2009 U.S. diplomatic cable described Azerbaijan’s foreign policy as
characterized by `pragmatism, restraint and a helpful bias toward
integration with the West.’ Baku’s orientation toward the West was
always in service of two priorities: maintaining its grip on power and
taking back the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, which Azerbaijan lost
to ethnic Armenian separatists in the early 1990s. But as Russia’s
dramatic new foreign policy changes the strategic landscape across
Eurasia, Baku appears to be recalculating whether its ties to the West
really are advancing its own goals.
The attack on RFE/RL followed months of extreme anti-Western rhetoric.
Top Azerbaijani government officials have accused the United States
ambassador to Baku of `gross interference’ and former Foreign Minister
Carl Bildt of Sweden of being an American spy. In early December, the
president’s chief of staff, Ramiz Mehdiyev, published a 13,000-word
article claiming that the C.I.A. was contriving regime changes in the
post-Soviet space (the so-called color revolutions). It also called
Azerbaijan’s human rights activists a `fifth column’ of the United
States.
The dominant criticism is that Washington, acting through NGOs and
human rights groups, is trying to destabilize the Azerbaijani
government. In fact, human rights activists have criticized American
and European governments for being too soft on Baku. Washington has
called the raid on RFE/RL merely `cause for concern.’ In spite of
Azerbaijan’s dismal human rights record, it has been awarded prestige
projects like the chairmanship of the Council of Europe’s Committee of
Ministers in 2014, and it will be hosting the European Games this
summer.
Anti-American rhetoric from Baku is not unheard of, but its recent
intensity, seemingly unprompted, and its reliance on Kremlin talking
points suggest a shift toward Moscow.
Russia has a collective security agreement with Armenia, maintains a
large military base there and provides the country with discounted
weaponry. It’s never been clear how Russia might intervene in a war
between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, but Baku’s
repudiation of America makes Russia less inclined to get involved in a
fight against Azerbaijan.
The United States, for its part, will never intervene militarily on
Azerbaijan’s side. And the payoff for Baku of putting up with
Washington’s hectoring on democracy and human rights shrinks as the
West loses influence worldwide. It’s a measure of the Azerbaijani
government’s disdain of Washington that the raid on RFE/RL was
conducted just days after Secretary of State John Kerry spoke with
President Ilham Aliyev on the phone.
In an interview in December, Ali Hasanov, a top presidential adviser,
was asked why the government began to so sharply criticize the United
States but not Iran or Russia. `Because they don’t criticize us,
that’s why,’ he said. `Russia, Iran, and China, too, deal with us on
the basis of noninterference in our internal affairs.’
Washington, meanwhile, increasingly judges partner nations according
to their opposition to Russia. At her confirmation hearing in
September, the new United States ambassador to Uzbekistan ‘ one of the
most repressive governments on the planet ‘ praised the country as `an
increasingly important partner,’ thanks to `its deliberate, reliable
resistance to Russian pressure.’ Azerbaijan’s mimicry of Russian
rhetoric and rapprochement with Moscow is an implicit threat to
Washington: Give us what we want, or we’ll go over to Russia.
The United States doesn’t need to give in to this blackmail. Yes, the
stakes are high: As Washington works to isolate Russia economically,
Azerbaijani natural gas has become an even more important alternative
to Russian gas for European customers. And Baku’s geopolitical shift
could upset the fragile balance that has kept tensions over
Nagorno-Karabakh from turning into a full-scale war.
But it would be short-sighted for Washington to sacrifice its
principles just to shore up support against Russia. Moscow’s current
geopolitical moment is only temporary. While the pro-Russia forces in
Baku appear to be ascendant for the time being, other powerful blocs
favor closer ties to the West.
Failing to stand up for human rights and democracy, including the
rights of its own RFE/RL, would make the United States look weak and
sap its supporters. Expecting to be arrested, Ms. Ismayilova herself
asked foreign governments to speak loudly in defense of the dozens of
political prisoners in Azerbaijan. `I don’t believe in human rights
advocacy behind closed doors,’ she wrote. `People of my country need
to know that human rights are supported.’
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/09/opinion/azerbaijan-snubs-the-west.html?_r=0