BAD GEOPOLITICAL OMENS

Who is interested in the return of instability between Armenia and Azerbaijan and why?

 

By Sidney Hey

Everything was calm on Tuesday morning when out of nowhere several booms were heard coming from the road connecting Yerevan with Nagorno-Karabakh. “From the roof of my house I could see several army trucks burning on the side of the road,” said Aram, an ethnic Armenian who lives in a mixed village near the Lachin corridor in the south-west of the region.

What old Aram saw burning were Russian S-300 anti-aircraft systems that were surprised by Turkish T-22 Baykal drones while other old TOR anti-aircraft systems were also destroyed near the Khankendi-Khojaly road. At the same time, the capital Stepanakert was hit by waves of Israeli-made LORA missiles and Kamikaze HAROP drones. Meanwhile, Azeri assault troops, equipped with Israeli weapons and communications, seized several key points in Nagorno-Karabakh.

The failure of the anti-aircraft systems to react was reportedly due to jamming of their radar signals or hacking of the equipment's Softwares and also due to the technology of the Kamikaze HAROP Drones, technology that Azerbaijan is known to have acquired from Israel's IAI.

But beyond the facts on the ground, we should analyse what this surprise action is really about and if Azerbaijan is the only one interested in this, where was the respect for the agreement signed after the end of the war in 2020? Baku's arguments for this “anti-terrorist operation” were in response to the murder of an Azeri citizen by gunfire allegedly coming from the Armenian side and also because of the terrorist attacks that the Azerbaijani embassy in London has been suffering.

Although the perpetrators of the latest attacks on British soil have not been found, Baku assumes that they are Armenians with Iranian support, which leads to a slippery slope in which the hypotheses multiply and with them the questions: What if the Armenians were behind these attacks? Why accuse the Iranians of being behind them; whose interest is it to get Tehran into the mud in this area; who would ultimately benefit from provocations that would reopen the Armenian-Azerbaijani war?

Just to take into account, one should not forget the involvement of Turkey-based MI6 and other allied agencies in triggering the 2020 war. In that sense, the accusations trying to implicate Iran in the London bombings raise a lot of suspicions to say the least, as it is not the first time that terrorist actions have been fabricated to blame certain actors (False Flag Op.).

Once again, incompetence, opportunism and deceit have come together against Armenia. Here again, too, the United Nations is conspicuous by its absence.

From Baku it was argued that the action had an anti-terrorist purpose. Where have we heard that before? The degree of pragmatism of the government in Baku has become very clear. In addition to the geopolitical ambitions of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, they have wonderful relations with the state of Israel, which is very interested in penetrating the region with two very important objectives: Iran and Pakistan.

The Armenian government of Nikol Pashinyan bears much of the blame for this situation. Since the ceasefire agreed with Russia as a guarantor of peace, his government has done nothing to prevent the possibility of another confrontation. For example, it did nothing to improve the equipment and training of its armed forces, which were crushed in 2020 by the modern Azeri military machine. But this neglect does not seem to stem from Pashinyan's own will, as he serves Western interests.

Why did the Armenian government do nothing? According to sources in Armenia, Pashinyan and his government are accused of having handed over their brothers in Nagorno-Karabakh for a specific reason: to do a favour to US geopolitical interests and, by extension, to NATO.

Not only opposition parties accuse this but also many ordinary Armenians who realise where they stand. They are aware that this Azeri move could be the tip of a wider action and that, to make matters worse, they are not prepared to defend themselves.

Russia will not be able to defend them as the Russian peacekeepers deployed on the ground are not authorised, let alone equipped, to fight against the level of force that Azerbaijan has deployed in Nagorno-Karabakh. It is at these crucial and distressing moments that many will (belatedly) regret not having invested and prepared their troops for such a foreseeable future as the one being seen here.

Whether Pashinyan let himself go because of some pact with Washington behind his people's back or mere negligence is anecdotal, since Azeri troops and their surveillance drones are now flying overhead monitoring his movements.

But if Pashinyan were to show any consternation about this and even if he were to act as a mandarin by ordering his army to prepare for the worst, would they be materially and technologically prepared for it?

The whole thing has a very bad smell about it. The alleged concerns of US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken that were made public calling on Baku to cease its actions may no doubt translate into their continuation and perhaps deepening.