PETERSEN: IRAN LOOKS TO THE NORTH: TEHRAN TIPS ITS DESIGNS ON PRO-WESTERN AZERBAIJAN
Washington Times
July 18 2013
By Alexandros Petersen
In the United States, our focus is on Iran’s activities to its
west and east. Tehran supports Bashar Assad in Syria, Hezbollah in
Lebanon, menaces oil exports in the Gulf and threatens Israel with
annihilation. On its other flank, it seeks influence in Afghanistan as
U.S. and NATO forces prepare to withdraw. However, we tend to ignore
Iran’s actions to its north, even as this – the greater Caspian region
– emerges as a particularly active theater for Iran’s ambitions of
regional power.
We do so to our detriment. With Washington’s focus elsewhere during
the past few months, Iran has steadily pushed the envelope with its
northern neighbors, in the disputed Caspian Sea and along its land
borders with Armenia and Azerbaijan. While Iran’s new president,
Hassan Rouhani, is considered more moderate than his predecessor,
since his election, Iran seems to be continuing its northward pivot.
In late June, Iranian warships sailed across the Caspian Sea to the
Russian port of Astrakhan. Their mission was to coordinate plans for
a major joint naval exercise in the fall. This is noteworthy because
not only is the Caspian a center of oil production that is exported to
Western markets, but also a key transit hub for the withdrawal of U.S.
and NATO forces and equipment from Afghanistan. Vessels with U.S.
military hardware routinely sail from Kazakhstan’s port of Aktau on
the eastern shore to Azerbaijan’s capitol, Baku, in the west. Joint
Iranian-Russian naval exercises could disrupt both the energy and
transit activities on the sea.
It would not be the first time. Iranian warships have in the
past threatened to attack Azerbaijani oil fields that were at the
time being explored by BP vessels. The issue of how the Caspian’s
energy-rich waters are divided among the littoral states remains
unresolved. While most of the countries on its shores have come to
bilateral understandings, Iran refuses to cooperate with any of its
neighbors – except when it teams with Russia to threaten the rest.
Iran is also injecting itself into the region’s most protracted
conflict: the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
While Iran supported pro-Russian Armenia in the 1990s against secular,
pro-Western Azerbaijan, Iranian clerics are now painting the conflict
as a war against Islam. They recently met with ethnic Azeris seeking
to liberate Karabakh.
On the other hand, Tehran has cultivated pro-Iranian groups and
extremist clerics in Azerbaijan to undermine the government in Baku.
It has mobilized hacker attacks under the banner of the Iranian Cyber
Army. These activities are intensifying as the October presidential
election in Azerbaijan approaches.
Earlier this year, Iranian lawmakers on the Security and Foreign
Policy Committee in Parliament released a number of statements
demanding the annexation of 17 of Azerbaijan’s cities, including the
capitol Baku. They prepared a bill that would revise the 1828 treaty
demarcating Iran’s northern border to pave the way for a greater Iran
that could incorporate territory from across the Caspian region,
from Turkey to Central Asia. It seems that Israel is not the only
country that Tehran has considered wiping off the map.
These sorts of actions have actually pushed Azerbaijan and Israel
closer together. The two have a joint venture on the production of
drone aircraft, as well as a wider defense technology relationship
wherein Azerbaijan has sought anti-aircraft systems from Israel
to guard against potential Iranian attack. Such threats are all
too specific for Azerbaijan, as Iran’s leadership has consistently
mentioned Azerbaijan’s major oil pipeline from the Caspian to the
Mediterranean as a primary target in the event of conflict with
the West.
Were such a clash to occur, it would behoove U.S. policymakers to be
more cognizant of the northern angle in Iran’s aggressive regional
policy. Even without the prospect of a major conflict, U.S. Iran policy
should reflect Tehran’s threats to our interests in the Caspian and
to regional partners such as Azerbaijan. For all Iran watchers, its
activities to its north will serve as a key test of Mr. Rouhani’s
supposed moderation.
Alexandros Petersen is the author of “The World Island: Eurasian
Geopolitics and the Fate of the West” (Praeger, 2011).
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jul/18/iran-looks-to-the-north/