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.