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By David Boyajian<\/b><\/p>\n
\u201cThe Caucasus is Ground Zero in the New Cold War between the U.S. and Russia.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I wrote that several years ago, and it\u2019s still true, particularly after Armenia decisively repulsed a mid-July attack by Azerbaijan.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Perhaps dozens of Azeris died in the battles, including a major-general, colonel, and two majors.\u00a0 Armenia reported far fewer deaths and captured a new defensive position, even though Azerbaijan possesses a bigger arsenal, quadruple the GDP, and more than triple Armenia\u2019s population.<\/span><\/p>\n Azerbaijan attacked Armenia\u2019s northeastern border and has done so before.\u00a0 Typically, though, Azerbaijan attacks <\/span>Artsakh<\/span><\/i> (Karabagh), the de facto-independent Armenian-majority region that voted some thirty years ago for freedom from Azerbaijan, which rejects that vote.<\/span><\/p>\n Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin deceitfully annexed Artsakh and the ancient Armenian region of Nakhichevan to Azerbaijan in the 1920s.\u00a0 Far from being ancient itself, Azerbaijan was invented only in 1918.<\/span><\/p>\n Why should any of this matter to the rest of the world?<\/span><\/p>\n Why It Matters<\/b><\/p>\n Armenian-Western relations go back thousands of years.\u00a0 The US\/NATO\/EU (we\u2019ll term it the <\/span>\u201cWestern Bloc\u201d<\/span><\/i>) has been very friendly to Armenia and Artsakh and aided them economically for decades.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Landlocked Armenia, however, depends on Russia for most of its gas and weapons.\u00a0 Moscow also controls much of Armenia\u2019s energy network.<\/span><\/p>\n Armenia (pop. 3 million), nevertheless, remains under threat from Azerbaijan (pop. 10 million) and Turkey (pop. 82 million) since the USSR\u2019s dissolution in 1991.<\/span><\/p>\n Armenia under Siege\u00a0\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n Turkey committed genocide against Armenians in <\/span>1915-23<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 The Armenian Highlands and everything else Armenian, particularly in what are now eastern and southern Turkey, were destroyed or confiscated.\u00a0 Azeris joined in that genocide in the Caucasus.<\/span><\/p>\n The Armenian Genocide isn\u2019t mere history.\u00a0 The threat of Genocide 2.0 always looms.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Turkey and Azerbaijan (motto: \u201ctwo countries, one nation\u201d) won\u2019t come to terms with Armenia\u2019s existence.\u00a0 Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev says all of Armenia should be part of Azerbaijan \u2014 without Armenians, of course.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The July 19 cover of the Turkish newspaper Dirili\u015f Postas\u0131 (Resurrection Post), headlined \u201cKarabagh or Death,\u201d portrays Azerbaijan as <\/span>encompassing<\/span><\/a> Artsakh and southern Armenia.<\/span><\/p>\n Turkey is still enamored with pan-Turkism, just as during WWI and the Armenian Genocide. Turkey envisions leading a federation that includes Azerbaijan and the Turkic-Muslim countries of Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) \u2014 all the way to China\u2019s Xinjiang Province.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Soldiers in Turkish-Azerbaijani military drills last year wore <\/span>arm patches<\/span><\/a> depicting such a pan-Turkic entity.<\/span><\/p>\n Participants in recent worldwide anti-Armenian demonstrations flashed the Grey Wolves (Bozkurtlar) hand signal.\u00a0 Grey Wolves is a neo-fascist, pan-Turkist organization responsible for hundreds of assassinations and murders.<\/span><\/p>\n While the European Allies (and, implicitly, America) <\/span>militarily<\/span><\/i> opposed<\/span><\/i> Ottoman Turkey\u2019s pan-Turkism in WWI, the Western Bloc <\/span>implicitly supports<\/span><\/i> pan-Turkism today.<\/span><\/p>\n Armenia is a geopolitical impediment to pan-Turkism.\u00a0 That\u2019s a key reason Russia needs Armenia.\u00a0 Russians are too proud to admit it though.<\/span><\/p>\n However, Russia has increasingly been cozying up to Azerbaijan and Turkey.\u00a0 Therefore, despite the Armenian-Russian mutual defense treaty and a Russian base in Armenia near the Turkish border, Armenia isn\u2019t always certain of Russian support, particularly against Azerbaijan.<\/span><\/p>\n Azerbaijani Threats<\/b><\/p>\n Azerbaijan has violated the ceasefire agreement between it and Armenia\/Artsakh thousands of times since 1994.\u00a0 Armenian forces are in defensive mode. They have little reason to violate the ceasefire.\u00a0 Azerbaijan rejects proposals for installing autonomous gunfire-detection equipment on the line of contact.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n President Aliyev refuses even to negotiate with Artsakh, a stable democracy.\u00a0 That\u2019s hardly a recipe for peace.<\/span><\/p>\n Armenia is democratic and reformist.\u00a0 Azerbaijan is autocratic.\u00a0 It imprisons journalists and human rights activists at an astonishing rate.\u00a0 Europe\u2019s Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) <\/span>named<\/span><\/a> Aliyev its 2012 \u201cOrganized Crime and Corruption Person of the Year.\u201d\u00a0 U.S. diplomatic cables described him as a <\/span>mafia-like<\/span><\/a> figure.<\/span><\/p>\n Aliyev\u2018s <\/span>\u201cAzerbaijani Laundromat\u201d<\/span><\/a> bribed European officials and laundered billions.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In 2004, Azeri serviceman Ramil Safarov axed to death an Armenian lieutenant in his sleep at a NATO exercise in Hungary.\u00a0 He was sentenced to life and imprisoned.\u00a0 Hungary eventually released him to Azerbaijan which welcomed him as a national hero.\u00a0 Armenian civilians have been tortured and beheaded by invading Azeri soldiers.<\/span><\/p>\n To \u2018prove\u2019 Armenians never lived in Nakhichevan, in 2005 the Azerbaijani military used pickaxes and dump trucks to destroy thousands of iconic headstones in a ninth century Armenian cemetery.\u00a0 It was caught on <\/span>video<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n During the twentieth century, Azerbaijan emptied Nakhichevan of its Armenians and was doing similarly in Artsakh before Armenians put a stop to it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n No wonder Artsakh says it will never again submit to Azeri rule.<\/span><\/p>\n Turkish threats<\/b><\/p>\n Turkey was set to invade Armenia in 1993 during a coup against Russian President Boris Yeltsin led by Ruslan Khasbulatov, the pro-Turkish Chechen and Supreme Soviet speaker.\u00a0 Fortunately, the coup failed.<\/span><\/p>\n In 1993, Turkish President Turgut Ozal threatened Armenia \u201cin case they had not learned their lesson in 1915.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Turkish President Erdogan recently menaced Armenia using a backhanded reference to the 1915 Genocide: \u201cWe will continue to fulfill this mission, which our grandfathers have carried out for centuries, in the Caucasus again.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Turkey is supplying Azerbaijan with Bayraktar drones (based on Israeli designs), T-129 ATAK helicopters, and TRG-300 Tiger rocket systems.\u00a0 Turkey has sent F-16 jets to Azerbaijan for joint military exercises.<\/span><\/p>\n Yet the Western Bloc has said and done nothing to restrain Turkey.<\/span><\/p>\n Turkey denies reports it will send jihadists to fight for Azerbaijan.\u00a0 In the past, however, Turkey has sent its Grey Wolves, and Azerbaijan has recruited Afghan\/Pakistani\/Chechen<\/span> m<\/span>ujahedin, to battle Armenians.<\/span><\/p>\n The Azerbaijani-Israeli-Jewish Axis<\/b><\/p>\n President Aliyev once compared Azerbaijan–Israeli relations to an iceberg: <\/span>\u201cNine-tenths of it is below the surface.\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n Israel sells Azerbaijan billions in advanced weapons (many used against Armenia and Artsakh) while Israel gets 40% of its oil from Azerbaijan and facilities to spy on and counter Iran.<\/span><\/p>\n Azerbaijan\u2019s \u201clobby in the U.S.,\u201d revealed Aliyev, \u201cis the Jewish community.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The American Jewish Committee\u2019s Executive Director David Harris (aka Jews\u2019 \u201cforeign minister\u201d), for instance, received Aliyev\u2019s \u201cOrder of Friendship\u201d award.<\/span><\/p>\n Numerous principled Jewish\/Israeli writers are friendly to Armenians.\u00a0 Still, the Israeli- Azerbaijani alliance has induced many Jewish\/Israeli writers to gleefully malign Armenia.\u00a0 Examples include <\/span>Brenda Shaffer<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>Nurit Greenger<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s reminiscent of how Jewish American organizations \u2014 ADL, AIPAC, AJC, and others \u2014 have <\/span>colluded<\/span><\/a> with Turkey and Israel (in friendlier days) to hypocritically deny\/diminish the Armenian Genocide and defeat Armenian Genocide resolutions in Congress.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Thus, the Azerbaijani-Israeli-Jewish axis is a clone of the disreputable Turkish-Israeli-Jewish one.<\/span><\/p>\n What\u2019s Needed\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n Under relentless pressure and against all odds, Armenia and Artsakh continue to hold out against foreign actors who wish to deny them their very existence.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Regardless, from a practical, if not moral, standpoint, the Western Bloc and Russia should rein in Azeri and Turkish aggression unless they wish to see the region explode.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n