MILITARY ESCALATION AROUND IRAN THREATES WITH INVOLVEMENT OF WHOLE CENTRAL ASIA
PanARMENIAN.Net
18.04.2007 18:30 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ In a timely decision, Azerbaijan recently (mid-March)
granted NATO the permission to use two of its military bases and
an airport to "back up its peace-keeping operation in Afghanistan"
including support for NATO’s "supply route to Afghanistan". NATO’s
special envoy Robert Simmons insists that the agreement has nothing
to do with U.S. plans to wage aerial bombardments on Iran.
Media sources in Baku have intimated that this timely agreement is
directly related to ongoing U.S.-Israeli-NATO war plans. Its timing
coincides with U.S. naval deployments and war games in the Persian
Gulf.
The airport and two military bases are slated to be "modernized to
meet NATO standards". Washington has confirmed in this regard that
it would "support the modernization of a military airport in the
framework of the Individual Partnership Action Plan (IPAP) signed
between Azerbaijan and NATO.
Azerbaijan is also strategic in view of its maritime border with
Iran in the Caspian sea. In this regard, the U.S. Navy is involved
in supporting the Azeri Navy, in the area of training. There is also
an agreement to provide U.S. support to refurbish Azeri warships in
the Caspian sea.
The U.S. sponsored Caspian Guard Initiative was launched in 2003 to
"coordinate activities in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan with those of
U.S. Central Command and other U.S. government agencies to enhance
Caspian security." The initiative was implemented under the cover of
preventing narcotics trafficking and counter- terrorism, Its ultimate
objective, however, is to provide USCENTCOM with a strategic naval
corridor in the Caspian sea basin.
The U.S. has also participated in joint Naval exercises with the
Azeri Army’s 641st Special Warfare Naval Unit, headquartered at the
Azeri Naval Station outside Baku.
More generally, both the U.S. and NATO are in the process of deepening
their military cooperation with Azerbaijan. In recent developments,
military-political consultations between the U.S. and Azerbaijan
are scheduled to be held in Washington in the second half of April,
according to a U.S. Embassy source in Baku.
The timing of these consultations is crucial. They coincide
chronologically with a process of advanced military planning. Military
escalation around Iran threates with involvement of whole Central Asia
Azerbaijan could be the object of retaliatory strikes by Iran, if
the country’s military bases are used by NATO-U.S. forces as a launch
pad for waging war on Iran.
Media sources in Baku have suggested that retaliatory bombings by
Iran could include Azeri oil fields and oil and gas pipelines. The
strategic Baku-Ceyhan pipeline, which links the Caspian Sea to the
Eastern Mediterranean could also be a target. The Baku Ceyan pipeline
is controlled by an Anglo-American consortium led by British Petroleum
(BP), Global Research reports.