ONE STAGE LEFT BEFORE START OF WAR
It is not a surprise that there may be people in Armenia who may outdo
Moscow’s expectations for justification of Russia’s treacherous deals
with Azerbaijanis against Armenians. After all, there is nothing new.
However, that “advocacy” of the initiative of war against Armenians
rather than supply of arms by Russia can start in Armenia is a nice
surprise to Moscow.
Or maybe Moscow knows Armenia is its capability better than we do.
Vartan Oskanian stated that Lavrov may know about the Karabakh
settlement more than we do. In addition, nobody was surprised by
this statement, at least the society and some experts. It was clear
to everyone Russia was more aware of our issue than we did.
In fact, there is no reason for surprise that there will be an army
of advocates and apologists who will justify in the morning press the
evening invasion of Russian tanks in Karabakh. Or they may justify in
the evening the invasion of the next morning. That would be better
because the Russians know about our issues better than us. It would
be better if they somehow let us know about the invasion. At least,
we would have a night to get ready.
In reality, the big issue is panic. Perhaps nobody would have doubts
that in order to prevent the deepening relations between Armenia
and the West Russia would even resort to a war and help Azerbaijan
to restore “historical justice”. After all, the Russians have a
rich experience of Turkish victory against the Armenians. However,
Russia will not launch a war unless it triggers a panic in Armenia
and Karabakh. Most probably, Moscow has set to cause a panic, going
from stage to stage.
First, the social premise of the panic is provided using economic
pressure and emigration. Then the psychological premise is ensured
justifying Russia’s “right” to punish the “pro-West” policy of the
government of Armenia with a new war in Karabakh.
Having the social and psychological premises in place, Moscow will
signal to Baku to launch the war. It is not ruled out that the weapon
sold to Azerbaijan may start shooting independently from Aliyev’s
will. At least, there have been several similar cases in the war
in Karabakh.
In reality, Russia does not care for the European integration of
Armenia. Moscow understands very well that it will not be something
fatal. Only one thing will be fatal – activation of the presence
of the Russian military base in the region because in an inactive
state it will lose its political effectiveness. In this regard,
the “pro-West” policy of the Armenian government has a very little
importance, and the main developments that deprive of meaning the
presence of the Russian troops in the Caucasus when it is not active
is the deep tendencies of developments relating to Syria and Iran.
Moscow understands this very well, and whether Armenia will get
further close to the West or not is not essential to Moscow from
the point of view of war because it needs to have active troops
in Armenia and Artsakh. In other words, Moscow will betray Armenia
and cheat Azerbaijan because not the status quo will change but its
administration which will be taken up by Russia.
So, the prospect of a possible war has nothing to do with the level
of relations between Armenia and Europe, and Moscow will just try to
use this to influence the issue.
Even if Armenia states now to join the Customs Union, let alone Russia,
the intensity of war planning in Moscow-based think tanks would not
drop any low because the problem of Russia is not to keep Armenia
within the area of its influence but to establish its influence over
at least “20%” of Azerbaijan, or maybe even more. In other words,
the possible war may end in the defeat of Azerbaijan but not in
victory of Armenia. It must end up in Russia’s victory.
However, Moscow still needs to pass the preparatory stages
successfully, which is not easy. Otherwise, Moscow would not hold
the preparations with such a noise.
Hakob Badalyan 16:17 10/07/2013 Story from Lragir.am News: