Preventing the Coming U.S. Disaster in the Caucasus

[Yervant1]

Preventing the Coming U.S. Disaster in the Caucasus

- DECEMBER 26, 2012

 

Caption: Map of Caucasus Region Credit: Jeroencommons/Wikipedia (GFDL & CC-BY)

By David Boyajian

 

The United States is risking a disastrous renewal of war in the

Caucasus between Armenians and Azeris over the breakaway

Armenian-populated Republic of Mountainous Karabagh (RMK, or Artsakh

in ancient Armenian).

 

A new war between Azerbaijan and RMK (with its ally, Armenia) would

undoubtedly destroy much of Azerbaijan's energy industry. This

includes key Azeri oil and gas pipelines which lie just a few miles

north of RMK and snake through Georgia and Turkey.

 

Azerbaijan's economy and corrupt government are massively dependent on

oil and gas revenue and would be in deep trouble. The already

conflict-ridden Caucasus - recall the Abkhazia stalemate and 2008's

Russian-Georgian war over South Ossetia - would be hopelessly

destabilized. U.S. policy, in particular, would lie in tatters.

 

Not surprisingly, Western energy giants such as BP, Chevron,

ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Total (France) own huge stakes in

Azerbaijan's energy infrastructure.

 

As expected, the conflict's mediators - the U.S., Europe, and Russia -

have an insatiable greed for Azerbaijan's substantial oil and gas

deposits. Yet had they, especially the U.S., formally recognized RMK's

independence from Azerbaijan, the conflict would have been resolved

years ago. Such recognition remains the only practical and just

solution.

 

Azerbaijan would be unhappy, yes, but would continue to sell most of

its oil and gas to the West. Azeris will never sell only to Russia.

That would bind them too tightly to their former overlord.

 

Azeri Violence

 

The conflict in Mountainous Karabagh broke out in the late 1980's just

after its Armenian majority, long abused by Azerbaijan, peacefully

declared its desire for union with Armenia.

 

Azerbaijan replied with murderous attacks against Karabagh civilians.

Mobs hunted down and killed Armenians in the Azeri cities of Sumgait

and Ganja. After the USSR dissolved in 1991, RMK held a referendum

boycotted by Azeris. It voted for independence. Azerbaijan's response

was full-scale war.

 

Even with help from Turkish military officers and paramilitaries, and

Afghan Mujahedin, Azerbaijan lost the war. A ceasefire was declared in

1994. Yet almost daily Azerbaijan threatens a new war and snipes

across the contact line.

 

Pumped up with billions in oil and gas revenue, Azerbaijan's $3

billion military budget dwarfs Armenia's entire national budget. But

Armenian troops are universally acknowledged to be better trained and

to possess much greater esprit de corps because they are defending

their ancient lands.

 

But the U.S., Europe, and Russia might be coming to their senses. A

few years ago, they proposed that RMK's 100,000 mostly Armenian

citizens decide its formal status in a referendum. In return,

Armenians would hand over vast tracts of territory to Azerbaijan.

 

Azerbaijan rejected this compromise. It insisted, unreasonably, that

its entire population of nearly 10,000,000 must participate in such a

referendum so as to outvote RMK's 100,000 people.

 

How solid is RMK's case for independence? Very.

 

RMK's Best Case

 

On every measure - history, demographics, and sheer decency - RMK has

as good a case as other nations, such as South Sudan, East Timor, and

the republics and regions of the former Yugoslavia, that have recently

been freed from their overlords.

 

During pre-Soviet, Soviet, and post-Soviet times, Azeris have

persecuted and murdered Mountainous Karabagh's Christian Armenians.

 

Since 1994, RMK has been a functioning, democratic, de facto independent state.

 

Ancient Greek and Roman historians - Strabo, Pliny the Elder, and

others - testify that Artsakh/Mountainous Karabagh was part of Armenia

since before the time of Christ, and has always had an Armenian

majority.

 

Only a thousand years later did Turkic-speaking nomadic tribes from

Central Asia begin dribbling into the Caucasus. At no time, however,

did they or Muslims constitute more than a fraction in Mountainous

Karabagh itself. An 1823 Russian survey reported it to be 97%

Armenian.

 

>From 1918-20, Azeris - in a pan-Turkic alliance with Turkey - attacked

and massacred thousands of Armenians in and around Karabagh. Shortly

thereafter, Russian Bolsheviks - allied with Kemalist Turkey at that

time - Sovietized the Caucasus.

 

Lt. Col. John C. Plowden, a British military representative in the

Caucasus, reported in 1919 that Mountainous Karabagh is `the cradle of

their [Armenians'] race ... Armenian in every particular and the

strongest part of Armenia, both financially, militarily and socially.'

 

But in 1921, Stalin, the Soviet Commissar for Nationalities, `gifted'

Mountainous Karabagh to Azerbaijan, probably to curry favor with

Turkey. Artsakh (Karabagh) was thereby artificially and physically

severed from Armenia, mere miles to the west.

 

Azerbaijan deliberately neglected not only Karabagh's economy and

roads, but also its communication and transport links with Armenia.

Law enforcement positions were filled with Azeris, even though they

were a minority. Armenians protested to Moscow in vain.

 

An Azeri policy of depopulation caused 30% of Artsakh/Karabagh's

Armenian villages to disappear between 1926 and 1980.

 

Azeris were also brought in to shift the demographics. Moutainous

Karabagh's Armenian population dropped to 94% in 1921, 89% in 1926,

80% in 1970, and 76% in 1989.

 

Were Republic of Artsakh/RMK to fall under Azeri control again, it

would inevitably suffer the same fate as Nakhichevan, another Armenian

province that Stalin `gifted' to Azeris.

 

Nakhichevan Emptied

 

Under Azeri rule over the past decades, Nakhichevan has been totally

emptied of its Armenians.

 

One Azeri official has actually declared that `Armenians have never

lived in Nakhichevan.' Since the existence of Armenian buildings,

churches, and monuments disprove such absurd claims, Azeris have

undertaken to deface or level them in Nakhichevan and elsewhere.

 

In 2005, for example, Azerbaijani servicemen used sledgehammers and

machinery to completely destroy thousands of ancient Armenian

Khachkars (intricately carved stone crosses) in a cemetery in the city

of Julfa. The Azeris were caught in the act from across the border.

The astonishing video is on the Web.

 

The destruction has been compared to the Taliban's dynamiting of

ancient Buddhist statues in Afghanistan. Azerbaijan has banned foreign

observers and ambassadors from the site.

 

Due to their falsifying others' history and culture, we are compelled,

sadly, to examine Azeris' own roots.

 

The Invention of Azerbaijan

 

Most people are unaware that `Azerbaijan' was created as a country -

out of thin air - in 1918, just after Russia's Bolshevik Revolution.

 

The region's Muslims had never been known as `Azeri,' an ethnicity

that had never existed. Rather, they called themselves Turks, Tartars,

or simply Muslims. Large numbers of Armenians, Georgians, and others

also inhabited that same territory.

 

Prior to 1918, `Azarbayjan' referred merely to two provinces - not a

country - in northwestern Persia (Iran). These were always located

strictly to the south, below the Arax River, of the

artificially-created Azerbaijan of 1918.

 

The so-called Azeris speak a Turkic language. But the word Azerbaijan

is actually Persian, not Turkic. It is derived from the name

Atropates, a Persian governor appointed by Alexander the Great around

327 BC.

 

The Soviets probably chose the name `Azerbaijan' in 1918 to further

their designs on Iran. Indeed, during and after WW 2, the Soviets

tried unsuccessfully to carve out a `People's Republic of Azarbayjan'

in Iran's northwest.

 

The Sordid U.S. State Department

 

The U.S. State Department's policies toward Azerbaijan have a

particularly sordid aspect involving personal gain and undue

influence.

 

In 2010, for example, President Obama appointed Matt Bryza as interim

American ambassador to Azerbaijan, despite Bryza's questionable ties

to Azeri officials.

 

Not surprisingly, after a year in Baku, Bryza joined the

Istanbul-based Turcas Petrol Corporation, a partner of the State Oil

Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR).

 

The United States-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce (USACC) has always

been crammed with former U.S. officials such as Vice President Dick

Cheney, former Secretaries of State James A. Baker and Henry

Kissinger, Richard Armitage, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Richard Perle, and

Brent Scowcroft. They rub elbows with USACC fat cats from corporations

that invest in Azerbaijan's energy industry.

 

Israel, known for its influence on U.S. policy, and some Jewish

American organizations, have allied themselves with Azerbaijan. 30% of

Israel's oil imports come from Azerbaijan. Israel is selling $1.6

billion dollars' worth of advanced weapons, including drones, to

Azerbaijan, which is threatening to use them against RMK.

 

The RMK conflict is not unsolvable. The facts are clear. Azerbaijan

has no valid claim to RMK. Yet U.S. support of Azerbaijan may drag it

into war.

 

America must take the lead and formally recognize RMK's independence.

Europe and Russia will follow. The alternative may be another U.S. war

whose cost in blood and money we Americans cannot afford.

 

# # #

 

The author is a freelance journalist. Many of his articles are

archived at http://www.armeniapedia.org/wiki/David_B._Boyajian.

 

http://www.armenianlife.com/2012/12/26/preventing-the-coming-u-s-disaster-in-the-caucasus/