As Hamas partisans continue the calumny that Israel’s counterterror operations equate to genocide, real genocide looms in the South Caucasus. In September, Azerbaijani troops seized the entirety of Nagorno-Karabakh, forcing the exodus of its 120,000 indigenous Christians.
Both Azerbaijan and Turkey long used the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute to justify hostility to Armenia. Their actions subsequent to the conquest of the largely Christian region, however, hint that diplomatic dispute was more an excuse for their hostility rather than its true cause.
Driving along the Armenia-Azerbaijan border, military fortification in Azerbaijan is obvious. Whereas Armenia builds customs posts and observatories, Azerbaijan constructs helicopter landing pads, airfields, rocket installations, and advanced radar stations. Barracks house dozens of troops at remote locations along the border. Azerbaijani forces have already seized territory within Armenia. President Ilham Aliyev, meanwhile, says that even Armenia’s capital Yerevan is Azerbaijani territory. The implication is clear: Azerbaijan prepares for a new war rather than a lasting peace.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan encourages such belligerence. In the wake of the Israel-Hamas war, he declared, “Like Armenia, Israel will fail too.” His description of the terror war as a struggle between “crescent and cross” reflects his true mindset. American and British diplomats may see Turkey’s army as an important NATO contingent, by Erdogan himself describes it as the “Army of Muhammad.” Both Erdogan and Aliyev regularly belittle Armenians, insult rivals by calling them Armenian, and describe Armenians as dogs or insects.
There are ample reasons why the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention has issued a “red flag alert” warning of the possibility of Azerbaijan perpetrating genocide against Armenia and Armenians. The question policymakers should ask is why after 30 years, the frozen Nagorno-Karabakh conflict suddenly erupted and why Aliyev so confidently dismisses diplomacy.
Some pundits may cite developments in Turkey or Russia, but they miss the forest for the trees. The reason why beginning three years ago, Azerbaijan rebuffed diplomacy and turned instead to war was a change in the regional balance of power.
The Azerbaijani economy is a one-act show. SOCAR, its state oil company, works in conjunction with BP (formerly British Petroleum) to finance the Azerbaijani government. BP has little interest in the quality of Azerbaijan’s government or its descent into a brutal dictatorship. While ordinary Azerbaijanis wallow in poverty, the Aliyevs spend hundreds of millions of dollars on London real estate and billions of dollars on new weaponry.
Azerbaijan imported nearly 70% of its arsenal in recent years from Israel. In one extreme example, an Israeli drone company seeking to win an Azerbaijani contract demonstrated its system by attacking an Armenian military position. Earlier this month, Baku purchased a $1.2 billion Barak MX air defense system from Israel.
So long as Azerbaijan can undertake a military buildup to give itself both a qualitative and quantitative edge over its neighbors, the chance for peace in the region is zero. Military balance matters. While democratic states fund their people more than their militaries, Aliyev does the opposite. In effect, he diverts the revenue BP’s decades-old contract provides to finance aggression and perhaps even genocide. BP may not be legally responsible, but it is shortsighted. As Aliyev ignores his own public, the risk of assassination or even revolution increases in the long term. No ex-Soviet dictatorship expects a color revolution until the day it erupts.
Should Aliyev order an outright invasion of Armenia, the resulting disruption will likely end BP’s ability to transport its gas from Azerbaijan to Turkey. If Azerbaijan, overconfident in its gas windfall, seeks to end the oldest Christian state completely, BP may shrug its shoulders, but it will be impossible for BP to sidestep its reputational stain. Simply put, its contract enables Azerbaijan to purchase weaponry from Israel and Turkey to pursue genocide against Armenian Christians.
BP may want to sidestep politics, but Aliyev will not give it the chance. It is time for BP to tell Aliyev: Enough is enough, BP will not be party to any dictator’s genocidal ambition.
Michael Rubin (@mrubin1971) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential blog. He is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/is-bp-financing-armenias-destruction