Iran Can Blow Up Azerbaijan From Within

Asim Oku, Axis Information and Analysis:

Despite the menacing statements by the confidant of the new Iranian President, it is unlikely that Tehran will attack Baku. The veiled influence on the political situation in Azerbaijan seems much more promising from the point of view of Iran than a direct missile attack. For this purpose religious and ethnic factors can be effectively used. READ MORE

In the first case the idea is to bring into play the various groups of Islamic fundamentalists. Though the Islamic factor as such in some areas of Azerbaijan possesses a certain "explosive potential", religious activists have no appreciable influence in the scales of the Republic as a whole. Besides, most of them are connected not to Iran, but to the Arab countries or Turkey. As a consequence, the ethnic factor is much more useful for Tehran. Applying it, an appreciable result may be achieved in really short terms.

Ethnic Azerbaijanians constitute a little more than 90 % of Azerbaijan's 8.5 million population. At the same time, about 20 national minorities live in this country. The largest are Lezghin, Talysh, Russian, Meskhetian Turks and Kurdish. Lezghins, Talyshs and Kurds are the indigenous inhabitants of Azerbaijan. They compactly live in areas of the historical dwelling, constituting majority of the population in some of them. National movements of these peoples were formed in the first half of the 1990s, but they have been oppressed by the official Baku.

Lezghin population is concentrated in the northeast part of the republic. The area of their dwelling adjoins to the border with the Russian Caucasus, where the most part of Lezghin people live. The number of this people in Azerbaijan, according to demographers, reaches about 260 thousand (by the official data from 1999 - 178 thousand). The leaders of national Lezghin movement claim that their number in Azerbaijan exceeds 800 thousand. Separatist moods of the local Lezghins in many respects depend on their leaders in the neighboring Dagestan. Lezghin movement is traditionally exploited by Russia in its Caucasian policy.

Kurds are living in the western part of Azerbaijan along the border with Armenia. According to demographers, their population reaches about 60 thousand (by the official data from 1999 - 13 thousand; such a huge gap is explained by the high level of assimilation). From the end of the eighties, Armenia tries to use the "Kurdish factor" in confrontation with Azerbaijan. Besides the Armenians, Abdullah Ocalan's PKK has certain influence here, especially on the representatives of the Kurdish youth.

Talysh people represent the indigenous Iranian population of Azerbaijan that distinguishes itself from the majority of modern inhabitants of the Republic having a Turkic origin, language and cultural attributes. Talysh population is concentrated in the southeast of Azerbaijan near the border with Iran, where the most of these people live.

In Azerbaijan according to official census of 1999 there was almost 77 thousand Talysh people. According to demographers, the real figure reaches approximately 250 thousand. However, the leaders of Talysh national movement in the republic state that there are about 1-1.5 million representatives of this nationality in Azerbaijan.

Because of the discriminative policy of Baku the majority of them either have lost national consciousness, or are afraid to recognize themselves openly as Talysh.
In the summer of 1993, on the background of destabilization of political situation in Azerbaijan, leaders of national movement have declared the establishment of Talysh Republic. It existed for only two months and has been "abolished" with the help of Azeri power and security structures following the instruction of President Aliev.
Ex-president of Talysh Republic Alikram Gummatov is still in prison. Majority of the other national leaders, who managed to flee, settled down in Russia, because the Talysh movement was Russian-oriented from the beginning of the last century. However, receiving no support from Moscow in 1993, a number of activists of Talysh movement have changed their alliance to Iranian.

The separatist moods of the above listed peoples, at favorable coincidence of circumstances can seriously destabilize the situation in Azerbaijan. And the compact residing of the Lezghin, Kurds and Talysh at the suburbs of the republic, near the borders with Russia, Armenia and Iran will ease this plot. These peoples can potentially be separated from Azerbaijan, enter the structure of the neighboring states or create their own political formations under the protection of Azeri neighbors.

Prospective

Results of Iranian presidential elections will inevitably lead to further confrontation between Tehran and Washington. As a consequence, Baku will find itself stuck between two smoldering flames. Wave of "velvet revolutions" that swept over the former Soviet republics is now threatening to sweep over Azerbaijan. Moreover, on the threshold of the autumn parliamentary elections, the opposition in this country has apparently reinforced its activity. A certain guarantor for saving Ilham Aliev's regime could be his strengthening ties with the US. On the other hand, the growing rapprochement between Baku and Washington, particularly in the military sphere, is menacing Iran. To guarantee its strategic interests, as Jamal Muhammedi has warned, Tehran is ready to take some "preventive measures". In order not to incite an open conflict with the Americans, the Iranians' actions won't be of military but rather of disguised nature. Otherwise speaking, a new splash of a secret war between the Azeri and the Iranian secret services is to be expected. In this war Tehran can count on the assistance of Erevan, and Baku - on the help of Washington.
Main task of the Iranian intelligence will be putting pressure upon Aliev's regime in order to convince it that it will rather loose from the strategic alliance with the US then benefit. Azeri Ministry of National Security (that had undergone a number of important personnel replacements last April) in its turn will have two tasks. The first one is tactic: to neutralize opponent's activity, including by operating on its territory. The second one is strategic: raising the value of Aliev's regime in the eyes of Washington, in the context of a potential American-Iranian conflict.
According to the confidant of the new president, Tehran plans first of all to use the ethnic factor, namely: to provoke the activation of Talysh national movement. Baku, as it seems, will bet on inflaming the separatist moods in the Iranian Azerbaijan.
Such clandestine games can turn to be a catastrophe for the whole of the Caucasus, the Central Asia, and the Middle East. The national minorities that inhabit Azerbaijan and Iran, are as well present in considerable numbers in the countries of all these regions.

Caucasus: Destabilization of situation in Azerbaijan, through the Talysh factor, at the background f the parliamentary elections, can provoke the Lezghin unrest in the North-East of the Republic. This will lead to activation of Lezghin national movement in the neighboring Dagestan. The situation there now is so tense that one match will be enough to explode the whole of the Russian Caucasus. From there the flame will inevitably stretch to Georgia. The Osetian problem and the unity of Vainakh peoples of the Caucasus will favor this process.

Central Asia: Splash of separatism in the Iranian Azerbaijan can incite the unrest of the Kurds and the Turkmen, who in the beginning of the 1980s still fiercely opposed the Islamic regime. Turkmen riots may impact the situation in the neighboring Turkmenistan, where the popular discontent from Niyazov's dictatorship is at the rise. Destabilization in this country will be followed by a chain reaction in the whole of the Central Asia. This region already is at the edge of the overall explosion, because of the recent aggravation in the situation in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. From here the flame of revolutions and ethnic conflicts will threaten the neighbors: the Chinese Xinjiang (Uighur separatism), and the Northern Afghanistan (Tajik-Uzbek conflict).

Middle East: Revival of Kurdish national movement in Iran will inevitably have impact on Turkey, Iraq, and Syria. In all of these countries the Kurdish problem persists. Its aggravation in Iraq will favor the raise of confrontation between the Kurds, the Shiites, and the Sunnites. Tension between the authorities and the Kurdish minority has been growing in Syria from the last year. A new push for it was the mysterious death of the Kurdish leader, at the end of May. In such conditions the unrest in the Iranian Kurdistan may provoke Kurdish revolt in the North-East of Syria. In the light of worsening economic crisis, and Damascus' loss of its positions in Lebanon, the antigovernment acts of Kurds may provoke mass manifestations of the Sunnite population against the regime of the Allawi minority. Such a scenario will inevitably have impact on the situation in the neighboring countries, in particular in Lebanon, and probably - in Jordan. Such dramatic events in the region cannot possibly pass by the monarchies of the Persian Gulf. On the one hand, there are large Shiite communities here that are discriminated. On the other hand, the radical Islamic opposition reinforces its activity. The Saudi Arabia is in particular danger.
It is unreasonable to describe the further course of events. Only taking in account the obligatory in such a case jump of the oil prices, it is clear that the consequences of this scenario will be felt at a global scale.

Strange as it is, but trying to hold Baku back from rapprochement with Washington, Tehran representatives by their threats simply push Aliev further into the embrace of his only protectors - the Americans. Thus, either willingly or not, the new Iranian leadership draws the Apocalypses day nearer and nearer.