All right, y'all.
Welcome back to the show.
It's anti-war radio.
Our first guest on the show today is Kevin Lim.
He is an independent writer and Azerbaijan humanitarian professional.
He's also a contributing analyst at Open Briefing, the civil society intelligence agency.
Huh?
I'd never heard of that.
It sounds interesting.
Uh, used to be a delegate with the international committee of the Red Cross in the Palestinian territories, Darfur, Iraq, Qaddafis, Libya, and Afghanistan specializing in protection and analysis.
His website is kevinlim.com and it's a K E V J N Lim, L I M, uh, dot com.
He's got this piece at the diplomat.
It's called Israel's Reluctant Friend.
And, um, it starts with a leak, apparently directly from the white house, I guess, or maybe, uh, I assumed that, but a very high level leak, uh, really the U S government outing the Israelis for making an alliance with the Azerbaijanis that, uh, could include the use of their airfields for any Israeli attack against Iran.
So basically then you're going through and explaining the background of this.
And I guess, first of all, that's a credible accusation you think, or is that at this point confirmed?
I think Scott, I think what we have to know is that this, um, the first article that started off this, um, uh, this string of debate, uh, actually started off through foreign policy.
This was an article that was published by Mark Perry on foreign policy magazine as a slightly over a month ago.
Um, now Mark Perry is a historian and, um, and he's a known, uh, uh, uh, he's not an unknown and what happened was I think he based much, all of his article on, I think what was four main sources, undisclosed sources from the American, uh, uh, department of state, as well as the intelligence community.
Um, he didn't disclose identities and a lot of the, uh, well, the claims made, uh, on the basis of this, uh, four or so sources, uh, uh, were later than, uh, thought to perhaps have been a deliberate leak on the part of Washington.
So this, this remains a, this remains an assumption.
Uh, it's still not really clear whether this was a deliberate leak.
It seems to be the case.
Uh, that's, uh, that's how it looks at prison.
All right.
Now, um, all I know about Azerbaijan is where it is basically.
And, um, I guess I had read a little bit, a few years ago about the dispute over Azerbaijani, uh, land that's separated and, uh, the, the Nagorno Karabakh enclave, a little bit of that, whatever.
Uh, other than that, I really don't know too much about it.
I guess at the time of the Georgia war, maybe somewhere around there, 2008, uh, Arno Debor Graf had, uh, written for, uh, for, uh, UPI, I think, uh, this same kind of story about Israel and Azerbaijan, perhaps working together on airfields, uh, there as well as in Georgia.
I may have my timing off on that, but anyway, I'm pretty sure he had written something about this in the past.
Uh, but anyway, I, I guess I was, uh, probably just assuming that most of the audiences, not all, but most audiences probably about as ignorant as I am about Azerbaijan and, and their relationship with, uh, Iran and, and maybe, I don't know, uh, a good question could be, how is their relationship with Iran so bad that they'd be willing to make an alliance with Israel against them?
When, as you point out, they're going to share a border with Iran, or maybe even be ruled by Iran from here on out, their geography isn't going to change.
Whereas their alliance with Israel could.
I think if you look at history, it's not a, it's not that Azerbaijan has, uh, got any sort of natural enmity with the Iranians.
In fact, they go back a long, very long way.
And, uh, I mean, Azerbaijan, the name of the country itself means land of fire, and this fire refers to Zoroastrianism, eternal fire.
And a lot of that was shared, um, with Iran, especially with Iran's Azeri population in the North, uh, West of the country.
Now, I mean, as I wrote in my article, both countries, Azerbaijan was also part of Iran, Iranian empire, until the Iranian defeat in the 19th century, um, by the Russians.
And after that, Azerbaijan became effectively a part of this Soviet empire from, from, uh, last, uh, early, uh, well, 1920, the early last century.
And because of that separation, because of that, uh, sort of, uh, also divide as well, um, Azerbaijan was quickly cut off from the rest of the, um, uh, the Muslim world, if you will, not totally, but from Iran, I think the, the effects, uh, was quite, uh, uh, the divide was quite, um, significant.
Um, but still, and the Azeris, they are Turkic people.
Iran is a huge, you know, a mosaic of many different ethnicities, including the Azeris, uh, which I, I, which I think is the largest minority there.
I'm not for the Persians, ethnic Persians, but there is no natural ethnicity, if you will, I think when it started, when Azerbaijan became independent, there was this whole wave of nationalism started by, by the first leaders, uh, uh, and particularly so by, um, by, uh, the president at the time of the post-Soviet transition, Abdul Fahd al-Shabaab, and he was very, uh, Azerbaijan started off not necessarily on a wrong footing with, uh, Iran, but it started off on a very pro...
It was pro-Western in its approach, but it was also one thing, positioning itself to be, uh, uh, in terms of an independent foreign policy.
And that also included, of course, alliances, um, not just with its immediate neighbors, uh, vis-a-vis Armenia, which, which then, uh, with which it had a, a six-year or so war, but it also started cultivating a lot of alliances in the West and also with Israel.
I think from that point of view, Azerbaijan, many ways like Turkey, once sees itself and wants to position itself as a country that's right in the middle, it's in a flux.
It was a test that, that divide between the Muslim East, uh, at a, well, at the risk of some reductionists, but between the Muslim East and the, and the West, or the West.
Now, where relations with Israel are concerned, I think the reason I don't believe for a moment that there's any sort of ideological basis, relationship with Israel, a lot of it has to do, obviously, with, uh, with, uh, real politics.
And Azerbaijan went through a skidding war, six years, six and a half years, and in the process lost, uh, the Nagorno-Karabakh, uh, uh, enclave, or what the Armenian side would call, uh, Al-Bagh.
And, uh, they came out basically a lot weaker, a country that was, uh, uh, uh, more military, militarily emasculated as well.
It's- Ah, yeah.
Well, there's a real point.
We'll have to hold it right there at that point and go out to this break.
It's Kevin Lim.
He's got this piece called Israel's Reluctant Friend about Azerbaijan at the diplomat.
And, uh, we'll be right back after this.
All right, y'all.
Welcome back to the show.
Hi Scott.
We're talking with Kevin Lim.
We got a, uh, a good line now, uh, much better, uh, to continue this conversation.
Um, I really, uh, highly recommend this, uh, article at the diplomat.
You'll learn a lot if you read it.
Israel's Reluctant Friend about Azerbaijan.
And you were saying before the break that, um, Azerbaijan's choice to basically side with the West and Israel.
Um, and in this case, it sounds like pretty severely, if, if these reports are to be believed, uh, pretty severely against Iran and in the case of, um, you know, helping Israel prepare for a possible, uh, launch of a war against them, um, but you were saying it's not so much some ancient beef or anything like that, uh, Azeri culture and the land itself has been part of the Iranian state, such as it is from time to time throughout history.
And of course the cultures are intertwined over all this time and all these things.
And so it's really just politics.
It's not some ancient hatred.
That kind of thing is basically what you're saying.
I, I, I think what we have to also bear in mind is that, um, essentially Baku, uh, Azerbaijan, they, they're walking a tightrope here between the West and the Muslim, uh, uh, uh, comrades rather than Muslim world.
And Iran is somebody that nobody in Baku and in the Azeri, Azerbaijani government wants to antagonize, at least not openly.
I don't think it works out in their favor at all, the direct neighbor.
Um, but a lot of these tensions also obviously stem from, um, how the Iranians see, um, Azerbaijan as deliberately, uh, uh, um, siding with the West, or I cited an example.
Most recently, an Iranian official made comments about the Eurovision contest being cited in Azerbaijan.
I mean, in my opinion, it was, it was really, uh, it was just, you know, uh, needless, it was just a pointless, it was just uncalled for.
Um, but basically, uh, he was accusing Azerbaijan of exposing, uh, of basically hosting this show and, and, and, and spreading shamelessness, if you will.
And, um, but the thing is that a lot of these alliances, Azerbaijan follows quite closely in Turkey's footsteps in terms of foreign policy.
Um, making, if you look at Turkey, you can understand how Turkey has been trying to be a bridge between the Muslim world, as well as the West.
Uh, not just because of it, not just because of its, uh, uh, geopolitics, it's, it's position between the Eurozone and, and, uh, Asia minor, but also in its soft power, the way it's been trying to position itself.
So Azerbaijan, I think in many ways, uh, follows closely in that line as well.
Um, now I was saying earlier that the relations with Israel specifically, I think a lot of that came, uh, derived from real politic, really Israel, uh, agreed to really upgrade Azerbaijan's army following its war with Armenia.
Um, which ended sometime in the early nineties.
And since then, obviously Israel needs oil as well.
This is one of the major factors that you have to take into account.
Um, and Azerbaijan was willing to supply this oil.
Um, Azerbaijan is a Muslim country is a Shia majority country.
The second biggest, well, proportionally speaking, it's got a second biggest Shia, uh, uh, population around.
And, uh, but the thing is that they all, it's become a very secular society as well after, um, well, are there political leaders, basically just American sock puppets, like the King of Kuwait, that kind of thing.
I, I wouldn't go so far as to say that I think there is a very clear, um, will on the part of the political leadership to, to, to, to be seen as pro Western, but I don't think they've overplayed that hand in any significant way.
If you ask me, uh, once again, I think they're walking a tightrope and they're doing, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the trying to deal with these conferences as best as they can.
Um, they cannot also afford to alienate the other countries that the neighbors as well in the Muslim world.
I mean, as a by John is a member of the OIC currently known as the, the, the organization of Islamic cooperation.
Um, and, uh, it has also taken positions within the Muslim world that, uh, that appear to be antithetical to Israel, for instance, sporting of a Palestinian state.
Uh, for instance, the, the, um, till now it's been 20 years, but there, there isn't any other by Johnny embassy in Israel.
So, uh, you sort of get a sense that what they're really trying to do here is to get the best of both worlds where this will lead.
It's anyone's guess.
Now, if you relate this back to the article, I don't think, uh, once again, that article that originally appeared in foreign policy, um, uh, based on those undisclosed sources, it may be true that this was Washington's way of trying to, um, trying to put pressure on Israel.
It may be true.
I don't, I'm not ruling that out.
Um, um, but at the same time, I think it's, it's highly unlikely.
It's really, really highly unlikely.
And it's, uh, if you look at all the factors, uh, combined, uh, the motive is unlikely or the assertion in the article that they're working together, the assertion could be true.
The assertion, I'm not, I'm not, you're doubtful about that motivation, that it was the America kind of outing the Israelis.
I don't know.
I can't, I can't say for sure.
I'm not, uh, I'm not an American, you know, a department of state insider.
I'm not an insider in the, in the intelligence community either, but on the Azeri side, on the Azerbaijani side, I think, uh, it, it, it's possible that it's, it also came as a very awkward development for them.
Um, I'm very sure there has been some kind of, uh, I'm very sure this has already been taken into consideration, possibly, uh, conducting some sort of aerial strike through Azerbaijan.
It's, it's logical.
If you look at it just purely from geographical, uh, from a geographical point of view, but, um, it's not just that it's just, it's just highly unlikely that that will happen.
Um, they have a lot more to lose.
Um, and I think the Israelis understand that as well.
And if push comes to shove, if any sort of aerial strike happens, uh, military strike on Iran, which I really hope will not, and at this stage, nobody knows whether it will, but if it does happen, I don't, I think the Israelis also understand that they, they wouldn't be able to be doing it through Azerbaijan because, uh, the costs are just way too high and too asymmetrical for Azerbaijan.
Is Azerbaijan a ruthless police state like so many other countries in the region?
Uh, I wouldn't, well, I know that Azerbaijan hasn't exactly got the best human rights record, but so do many other states in the region, um, really.
Well, and over here in the middle part of North America as well.
So don't, don't feel too bad, you know?
So I think it's, if comparatively, it's not as bad as many other, well, uh, you know, many other states in, in Central Asia, let's just say among the, if you want to just compare it with the former Soviet Union countries in Central Asia, there are countries like Uzbekistan, which, um, where, you know, the term police state could be a lot more applicable.
Yeah.
Um, I think it's less, I know Azerbaijan's had crackdowns on, on, on, on journalists.
It's, it's got a lot of media blackouts.
Um, but I think it's also a relative question.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, yeah, that's always interesting.
Uh, must be difficult to be politicians running a tiny little state in such an important region surrounded by such a larger powers with such varied interests.
Uh, but I guess that's life.
Uh, all right.
Uh, thanks very much for your time.
Really appreciate it.
Thank you Scott.
Thanks for having me.
Everybody.
That's Kevin Lim.
His piece at The Diplomat is called Israel's Reluctant Friend.
Check it out.
