IRAN WAR THREAT RATTLES NERVES IN CAUCASUS
By Nikolaus von Twickel
12 April 2012
When the world’s major powers gather in Istanbul on Saturday for
crucial talks with Tehran on its nuclear program, Moscow’s negotiators
will have extra motivation to avoid a war.
An Israeli attack on Iran would not only send shock waves throughout
the Gulf region and the Islamic world, it would also have unpredictable
consequences on the South Caucasus, long regarded by Moscow as Russia’s
own backyard.
Some experts are warning that a war with Iran carries the risk of
reigniting the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, an Azerbaijani breakaway
province controlled by Armenian separatists, and even precipitate a
war between Russia and Georgia.
While those voices are a clear minority, few dispute that the region,
awash with unresolved ethno-territorial conflicts, remains a powder
keg. And the ratcheting up of tensions over Iran has already spilled
over into Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia.
Earlier this week, Iran’s Intelligence Ministry announced that it had
arrested an Israeli-backed terrorist group whose headquarters lay in
another country in the region.
The ministry did not name the country, but most observers pointed to
Azerbaijan. The country has been described as a potential staging
ground for an Israeli attack on Iran in a controversial article
published by the U.S. magazine Foreign Policy last month, which claimed
that Baku has granted Israel access to air bases on its territory.
Ali Hasanov, a senior official in Azerbaijan’s presidential
administration, denied the report, saying “foreign circles” were
using the tensions over Iran to sow discord between both countries,
Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported.
But Baku has seen a host of suspicious incidents recently. Earlier in
March, police arrested 22 individuals whom they accused of being hired
by Iran to stage terror attacks against Israeli and American targets.
Those arrests came on the heels of a report in January that Azerbaijan
had uncovered an Iranian plot to kill the Israeli ambassador in Baku.
On Thursday, Azerbaijan’s National Security Ministry said it had
arrested a group of more than eight Azeri and Iranian citizens
suspected of smuggling arms and drugs into the country.
Deepening ties between Israel and predominantly Muslim Azerbaijan
were highlighted in February when it emerged that Baku had bought
arms worth $1.6 billion from the Jewish state. Analysts have said
the deal has little to do with Iran and a lot with Baku’s drive to
equip its military for a potential war over Nagorno-Karabakh.
But a shadow of doubt was cast over this explanation by a media report
last week that said the arms purchase included Gabriel anti-ship
missiles, which Azerbaijan will use to protect its Caspian Sea coast
from Iranian warships.
Tehran has also accused Baku of supporting Israeli-trained
assassination squads targeting Iranian scientists, an accusation the
Azeri government called slander.
And in February, Baku lawmakers called for changing the country’s name
to “North Azerbaijan,” suggesting that the 16 million ethnic Azeris
who live to the south in northern Iran are in need of liberation.
All this already makes for a lot of trouble in Iranian-Azeri neighborly
ties, but by bringing in Armenia, Georgia, the United States and
Russia, the picture becomes more dramatic.
Armenia, the region’s staunchest Russian ally, is dependent on supply
routes through Georgia and Iran because it has no ties with Azerbaijan
and Turkey, its other two neighbors.
Earlier this month an Armenian analyst warned that Azerbaijan might
launch an attack on Nagorno-Karabakh because it calculates that Iran
would close its border with Armenia and Georgia would not let Russian
aid pass through its territory.
“They understand that and can use that in case of a war over Iran,
Sarkis Astaryan was quoted as saying by the Panarmenian.net site.
Meanwhile, Georgian officials warn of a new war with Russia, citing
Moscow’s announcement to hold large-scale military exercises in the
North Caucasus in September.
Giga Bokeria, the secretary of Tbilisi’s national security council,
argued that the Caucasus 2012 exercises will include Russian troops
stationed in Georgia’s breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South
Ossetia.
Speaking on Ekho Moskvy, he suggested that Moscow wants to achieve
regime change in Georgia “finishing what it started in 2008,” when
Russia and Georgia fought a brief war over South Ossetia.
Military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer went further by arguing that the
planned exercise is intended to counter any U.S. involvement in a
war with Iran.
And Georgian opposition figures have suggested that a series of newly
constructed provincial hospitals was financed by the United States
and part of a covert campaign to ready the country for war.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin has said the fuss
about the exercise was inappropriate.
But analysts told The Moscow Times that risks over Karabakh and in
Georgia are so high, that no side would dare fire a shot, lest they
set off a devastating war.
“A war over Iran would destabilize the whole South Caucasus,”
said Alexander Krylov, of the Institute of the World Economy and
International Relations.
He argued that Russia’s North Caucasus exercises do not mean that war
is imminent. Rather, he said, they could “cool the heads of regional
leaders and demonstrate stability.”
Krylov also strongly argued against the possibility of an Azeri attack
on Karabakh, saying it would jeopardize the country’s precarious
foreign policy position.
“Nobody would support them, not even Turkey,” Krylov said.
A former ambassador from a major western country to Azerbaijan, who
spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the
issue, agreed that Azeri President Ilham Aliyev was a “clever man”
who will do everything to maintain a foreign policy strategy of
“quadrilateral balance between Russia, Iran, Turkey and the West.”
“Right now they are very busy telling the Iranians that they pose no
threat to Tehran’s security,” the ex-ambassador said.
He added that a war between Israel and Iran would only upset this
balance.
Others said both Azerbaijan and Armenia would suffer considerably from
a war over Iran because it would bring Baku’s lucrative oil exports
to a halt, while stopping Yerevan’s crucial oil imports from Iran.
Ben Judah, a Caucasus expert at the European Council of Foreign
Relations think tank said Israel currently imports a third of its
oil from Azerbaijan, which flows via pipelines through Georgia to
the Black Sea.
“War with Iran would leave Baku vulnerable,” he said in a telephone
interview from London.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/iran-war-threat-rattles-nerves-in-caucasus/456681.html#ixzz1rwY0CTrz