Peace settlements are filled with contradictions, which are necessary for motion. In their turn, the Middle East and the South Caucasus have a long history of contradictions (historical, ethno-religious, economic, and political), which can spark new wars. Peace in a complex region can usually be maintained by a balance of forces and interests, with the dominant nations playing an essential role.
Iran holds a special place in this political geography as the exponent of centuries-old Persian civilization, the flagship of the modern Shia Islam, the owner of large global reserves of strategic raw materials (oil and gas), and an example of autonomous and self-sufficient development in the face of 44 years of harsh sanctions. Iran along with Turkey and Saudi Arabia are significant players in shaping the Middle East’s development trajectory. Iran has often proved to the world its potential to resuscitate and reach new heights of nation-building throughout its magnificent history.
Unfortunately, as a result of US imperial tactics in the Middle East following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, a new fundamental crisis in Iranian-Israeli relations occurred. The positions of Tehran and Tel Aviv on the Palestinian question are irreconcilable, and these disagreements extend to the block of economic matters as well.
Israel has regularly utilized targeted strikes against Iran’s military and military-industrial facilities (both within and beyond Iranian territory), accusing the mullahcracy regime of catering to international terrorism and authoritarianism against its own people. The Israeli government opposes Iran’s nuclear program, despite the fact that they themselves regard nuclear weapons as a critical means of strategic security.
In its regional diplomacy, Tel Aviv is attempting to split the Islamic world’s unity, to use the ethnic and religious contradictions of the Middle East and the Shiite world to minimize external threats to Israeli security interests, and to establish bases around its opponents (particularly against Iran) for subversive activities and military logistics in local conflicts.
Israel’s seizure of the Golan Heights as a result of the 1967 Six-Day War, which had previously (from 1944 to 1967) been part of Syria’s Quneitra Governorate, the establishment of partnerships with the Northern Kurdistan leadership in Iraq (the Barzani family – Masoud, Nechirvan and Masrour Barzani), and now reaching strategic partnership relations with President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev were all achievements of Tel-Aviv’s longstanding diplomacy.
At the same time, despite a number of disagreements with the Ottoman successor, Israel maintains reasonable predictable and stable ties with Turkey. It is a well-known fact that Turkey was the first Islamic country to establish diplomatic relations with Israel. The history of cooperation between Zionist leaders and Young Turks; Turkey’s membership in the NATO bloc; the role of the United States and Britain in the fate of the Turkish state after World War II; and the contribution of the Jewish community and business to the development of the modern Republic of Turkey all contribute to the unique nature of Turkish-Israeli relations.
Iran, for its part, has used equally effective tactics to increase its influence in Israel’s geographic context. Tehran has achieved a somewhat steady position in Lebanon relying on Hezbollah, in Syria with the support of the local Shiites and Alevis, and in Iraq through to a cooperation with the Kurdish Talabani dynasty in Sulaymaniyah and an alliance with Iraqi Shiites. Tehran has amicable connections with Armenia to the northwest of its borders and is currently re-establishing friendly relations with Saudi Arabia to the southwest.
Nonetheless, Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is spinning a new round of Israeli-Iranian conflict in the hopes of establishing a broad coalition that includes the US, Britain, Azerbaijan, Turkey, and Pakistan. Israel does not rule out the possibility of initiating a major conflict with Iran to destroy nuclear sites, overthrow the mullahcracy regime, and perhaps even divide the Iranian state into several ethnic entities (Azeri, Baluchi, Kurd).
Iranian-Azerbaijani ties have recently deteriorated. Tehran, in particular, expresses dissatisfaction with Baku’s diplomacy in opening its Embassy in Tel-Aviv and accuses Azerbaijan of collaborating with Israel by providing military logistics (airfields and technical reconnaissance facilities) for the IDF and Aman on its border with Iran. Terrorists attacked the security personnel of the Azerbaijani Embassy in Tehran in February of this year. Baku reacted by removing its embassy personnel. In Azerbaijan, anti-Iranian rhetoric is increasing in the media. Special forces arrest a large number of Iranian supporters (particularly Shiite religious figures), and four employees of the Iranian Embassy are expelled on intelligence-related accusations. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan demanded that Iran follow a policy of non-interference in internal matters. Outside forces, interested in destabilizing the situation in Iranian Azerbaijan, are attempting to begin separatist movements with the support of the local Azerbaijani population.
It came to the point that Tehran initiated an emergency meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation with a call to the countries of the Islamic world to condemn the Azerbaijani-Israeli partnership and the opening of the Embassy of Azerbaijan in Tel-Aviv. Israel’s Foreign Minister Eli Cohen famously directly urged Baku to present a united front against Iran during a meeting with his colleague Jeyhun Bayramov in Tel Aviv to mark the opening of the Embassy of Azerbaijan.
Iranian structures are spreading information that allegedly President Ilham Aliyev found himself in a situation of complete dependence on the Israeli government in terms of obtaining Israeli weapons against Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, which played a key role in the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in the fall of 2020.
Azerbaijan’s militarization agenda remains active, with new weaponry and military equipment adding to its arsenal from Israel and Turkey. Despite Azerbaijan’s persistent posture of military tension with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh, Baiden administration rejects the initiatives of US Congressmen to ban military aid to Baku.
Furthermore, Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated in March of this year at a meeting of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in favor of repealing Amendment 907, which forbids the United States from providing military assistance to Azerbaijan. The statement is part of Washington’s anti-Iranian campaign, because Azerbaijan, according to Blinken, need security because “it has a long border with Iran.”
Washington is attempting to disrupt the process of Russian-Iranian regional partnership in order to weaken Moscow’s ability to conduct successful special military operation in Ukraine, to exclude the growth of Russian-Iranian military-technical cooperation, and to use Turkey and Azerbaijan to systematically exploit NATO’s entry into Turkic countries of Central Asia which are historically rich with resources.
Meanwhile, according to Russia-based analyst and Iranian studies specialist Karine Gevorgyan, closed meetings are held between Iran and the United States. Iran and the United States have reached some significant agreements. Iran, in particular, handed three previously arrested US individuals to the American side, and the US unfroze $10 billion from the dormant Iranian holdings. This evidence indicates that Washington is keeping a tight eye on developments in Iran, jealously scrutinizing the development of Iran-China, Iran-India, and Iran-Russia relations, as well as the fact that Tehran and Riyadh have begun to reconcile under Beijing’s supervision.
The latter suggests that the US is hardly interested in starting a major military conflict against Iran. There are both internal and external causes for this. In particular: Iran’s achievement of a threshold limit on atomic weapons development, which does not preclude Tehran from using WMD in the event of a coalition force attack; Iran’s intensified relations (including military and military-technical relations) with China, India, and Russia, which do not preclude Washington from interfering in disputes involving such significant global players; the beginning of the restoration of the Iranian-Saudi diplomatic relations with the aid of Beijing, which is potentially capable of blocking the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf for coalition forces in the event of anti-Iranian aggression; lack of confidence in the military success of coalition forces over Iran; finally, the entry of the United States into the pre-election period and the announcement of Joe Biden about his candidacy for a second term.
It is no coincidence that Herzi Halevi, the Chief of General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, said on April 5 this year that Israel can do without the assistance of the United States in the war against Iran and ostensibly does not depend on the United States in security matters. However, Halevi has so far pledged to increase Israel’s military power within a few years in order to carry out a fictitious strike on Iran in the future, and he has thought it prudent to secure American support.
For some reason, another significant player, Turkey, whose participation in the anti-Iranian coalition is desired by Israel and Azerbaijan, chose to remind its ally Azerbaijan through its Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu that without increased defense spending by its army Azerbaijan could not succeed in Nagorno-Karabakh in the fall of 2020. “Turkey has increased national and local production in the field of military industry to 80 percent,” Çavuşoğlu said. “If we hadn’t reached that figure, if we hadn’t manufactured combat UAVs, if we hadn’t manufactured all kinds of ground, air defense and attack systems, including helicopters, it would have been difficult for Azerbaijan to take Karabakh.”
Since Baku, Yerevan, and other capitals are well aware of the facts and the scope of military assistance provided to Azerbaijan during the previous Karabakh war, the Turkish Foreign Minister’s statement actually doesn’t cause any special sensation. Here, the moment of disclosure and overtone are more crucial than the text itself. Turkey is currently in a dire situation as a result of: the disastrous aftereffects of a devastating earthquake (more than 50,000 fatalities, although this statistic, alas, may change in relation to the number of destroyed buildings); an acute financial and economic crisis; the requirement for significant investments for reconstruction work in the earthquake zone (and the real investors can be China and the wealthiest Arab monarchies of the Persian Gulf, which are not interested in the aggression of the coalition forces against Iran); finally, a complicated general election.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is more interested in building positive ties with China and Russia than in making Turkey face new challenges for Israel’s sake. Determining them to be a provocative conduct during the holy month of Ramadan, the Turkish President has harshly criticized recent operations taken by Israeli law enforcement authorities against the Islamic shrine of Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. As a result, Turkey is sending a message to both Israel and its little brother Azerbaijan that starting a new confrontation in the region with unknown implications is not a good idea.
Meanwhile, a recent phone conversation between Azerbaijan’s and Iran’s foreign ministers resulted in Mr Hossein Amir Abdollahian canceling his decision to change the Envoy to Baku. This could imply that Iran does not see the need to initiate a new policy with Azerbaijan, or that it has stopped issuing warnings to Baku. Indeed, the deterioration of relations between Shia Iran and Azerbaijan recalls a certain resemblance in the relations between Slavic Russia and Ukraine. Neither Russia nor Iran wants conflict with fraternal Ukraine and Azerbaijan, where relations are artificially aggravated with the interference of the same US and its allies.
They say that “better a bad peace than a good war.” It is preferable for Israel to accept the “bad peace” (or, even better, to reestablish good relations with Iran through the lens of the same mutually beneficial economy) rather than to escalate a conflict into the flames of a major war. The battle against Iran is an equation with many unknowns and a high likelihood of regional and global conflict becoming international with new participants.
Aleksandr SVARANTS, PhD in political science, professor, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”
