An airfield called Azerbaijan

Source: Perry-Castenda Collection

Earlier this week, Mark Perry published an excellent article at Foreign Policy magazine detailing the military alliance that has formed between Israel and Azerbaijan, and specifically the possibility of Azerbaijan being used as a jumping off or landing point for attacks on Iran.  Perry reports that the U.S. has concluded that Israel has been granted access to Azeri airbases, quoting a senior U.S. administration official as saying "the Israeli's have bought an airfield, and the airfield is called Azerbaijan."

For Israel and its partners in Washington and London, Azerbaijan provides prime territory to agitate against both Russia and Iran.    If they wanted to bomb Iran, as former CENTCOM commander Joe Hoar described to Perry, the Israeli's "would save 800 miles of fuel" by launching from Azeri bases, making an increased payload possible. "That doesn't guarantee that Israel will attack Iran, but it certainly makes it more doable," Hoar said.  Besides territorial proximity, around 17% of the Iranian population of 70 million is of Azeri ethnicity.  Recently, there have even been calls in the Azeri parliament for the name of the country to be changed to North Azerbaijan, suggesting that the ethnic Azeri's in Iran live in a "south Azerbaijan" that needs to be freed.

This, however, is not a new partnership, according to a 2006 Middle East Quarterly article, as Israel made political inroads into Azerbaijan soon after the country gained independence following the Soviet crack-up:

In 1991, Azerbaijan was economically fragile, politically unstable, and militarily weak. Desperate for outside assistance, Baku turned to Israel to provide leverage against a much stronger Iran and a militarily superior Armenia. Israel promised to improve Azerbaijan's weak economy by developing trade ties. It purchased Azerbaijani oil and gas and sent medical, technological, and agricultural experts. Most importantly for Azerbaijan, Israel's foreign ministry vowed to lend its lobby's weight in Washington to improve Azeri-American relations, providing a counterweight to the influential Armenian lobby. According to Azerbaijan's first president, Abulfas Elçibey, "Israel could help Azerbaijan in [the] Karabakh problem by convincing the Americans to stop the Armenians."Azerbaijani diplomats recognized the need to diversify their contacts in Washington, especially after the U.S. Congress imposed sanctions on Azerbaijan at the behest of the Armenian lobby following the war in Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijani military officials also believed that Israeli firms could better equip the ragtag Azerbaijani army, which needed new weapons following its defeat in Nagorno-Karabakh. On several occasions, Heydar Aliyev, Azerbaijan's president between 1993 and 2003, personally requested military assistance from Israeli prime ministers.

By the middle of the 1990's, Tel-Aviv began to solidify its relationship with Azerbaijan.  First, in 1994, the Israeli telecommunications firm Bezeq bought a large share of the Azeri telephone operating system.  Then, high-level official visits to Baku commenced, starting in 1996 by Health minister Ephraim Sneh, then in 1997 by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and in 1998 by a high-level Knesset delegation.

For the U.S., Azerbaijan was seen exclusively through a geopolitical lens, in terms of great-power spheres of influence over energy and security matters.  In the 1980's, massive new oil and gas were discovered in the Soviet Union's Caspian Basin.  When this area gained independence from Moscow in 1991, Washington moved to establish control over the Caspian region, in order to develop pipeline corridors to transport the petrofuels to sea, and European and Asian markets.  For the U.S., the critical matter was bypassing the traditional powers in the region, Russia and Iran, and thus small and troublesome states like Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, and Afghanistan had to be dealt with in order to reach the Mediterranean Sea and Indian Ocean.  The Caspian port of Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, was the starting point for one pipeline, the Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan (BTC), which went from the Caspian through the Caucuses to Turkey and its Mediterranean coast.

In the process of building this geopolitical control, values like good-governance and human rights were sacrificed on the alter of energy security.  The result was that a swath of Soviet era strongmen remained in power across the region, supported by Washington due to their fealty on energy and security matters.  A frank assessment of the situation was made by a State Department official in early 1992, after Secretary of State James Baker made a whirlwind tour of the regions newly independent states: "some of these new countries are going to make it, and others are going to join the swelling ranks of third world basket cases, just limping along. Those that are most likely to make it are those like Turkmenistan that have economies based on agriculture, oil, gas and minerals." (New York Times, 2/15/92)

Azerbaijan, ruled by former KGB general Heydar Aliyev, was determined to be one of the countries that "made it."  He heavily courted the major Western oil corporations, signing in 1994 a $7.4 billion oil concession deal with 10 companies, including BP and Unocal.  According to a Mother Jones article, Aliyev went as far as to sign the deal into Azeri national law, as Azerbaijan lacked an adequate commercial code.  More contracts with Chevron and ExxonMobil soon followed.  To go along with the energy deals, Azerbaijan also sought out NATO, the Western Cold War military alliance, through the Partnership for Peace military training program.  Azerbaijan was one of the first states to join the program, with President Aliyev signing the framework in a 1994 visits to NATO headquarters.

New Page: Public Opinion Polls

Recently, I have become interested in the effect of Foreign Policy on the 2012 elections, and thus have been searching out a lot of polling numbers.  I have begun to compile them on a blog page here, located on the top left hand corner of the site.  So far, I have only collected polls taken during the Obama Administration, and have looked at surveys done by Pew Research, ABC News, and Gallup Polls.

Please read, and if you have any polls you would like added, put a link in the comments section.
Here is a nice inforgraphic from a recent poll on Afghanistan

For the full list of polls so far, continue reading, or look at the page on the left

Maybe someone should campaign on these issues (updated)

Today, Pew Reseach published the results of a recent poll they took on American's foreign policy opinions.  Conducted between March 7th and 11th, Pew interviewed 1,503 people, and found that the country is in no mood to provide any military support in Syria, and a majority (57%) of people want the U.S. to pull out of Afghanistan "as soon as possible."  On Iran's nuclear program however, there is still fear, as across the political spectrum a majority of people are worried that the U.S. "will wait to long to act" as opposed to "act too soon."

The overall picture is of a country very weary of war, and hesitant to take on new interventions.  In Libya last year, polls showed even less support for an intervention than currently in Syria, and although these numbers jumped slightly once the bombs began to fly, even when Tripoli was captured by the rebels in September, airstrikes were seen as "the right decision" by less than 50%.

The war in Afghanistan is also incredibly unpopular in Pew's poll (which was conducted before the recent night time shooting spree by an American soldier).  69% of Democrats say removing troop "as soon as possible" in the right policy, as do 58% of Independents and 41% of Republicans.  Among Democrats, only 25% approve of the policy of "keeping troops there until stable."  Moreover, the Republican base is divided, with a slight majority (51%) of moderate republicans favoring a cut and run policy, and only 57% of conservative Republicans favoring to prolong the mission until stability is achieved.

Update:  An ABC News/Washington Post poll conducted over the same time frame gives similar numbers.  On Afghanistan, 54% of respondents thought that the U.S. should withdraw its troops "even if the Afghan Army is not adequately trained."  Given the question "has the war in Afghanistan been worth fighting?" 60% thought that it was "not worth fighting," and 44% of them strongly so, while only 35% thought that it has been worth fighting.   (See chart below).

On Iran, the poll shows a remarkable phenomenon.  Despite the fact that the public is convinced (84%) that Iran is trying to build a nuclear weapon, which is not the opinion of the U.S. intelligence community,  81% still favor direct diplomatic talks between Washington and Tehran to solve the situation, a policy the U.S. has distanced itself from for over 30 years. A majority of people also oppose both the U.S. or Israel bombing Iran's nuclear sites, an idea discussed exhaustively over the past year in the media.  Here you have an American public that has bought into the fear-mongering, and yet is still far more open to diplomacy with this supposed "enemy" than the government is.


One wonders what effect these type of numbers will have on the rhetoric of the 2012 elections.  Both Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum have already mentioned their doubts of ever achieving success in Afghanistan, and the less mainstream candidates like Ron Paul and Gary Johnson have campaigned against the war stridently.  If Democrats are polling even lower than Republicans on the issue, this message has to be taken up by Democrats running for Congressional seats.  It is absurd for the Democrats to suddenly become the pro-War party in the face of GOP anti-war messaging.  It makes much more sense for a bi-partisan consensus to be reached on the failure of the Afghanistan troop presence, realigning the Congressional ideology away from nation building

Moreover, what effect does the unpopularity of intervention, whether "humanitarian" or not, have on the current Republican power structure.  The hawkish duo of John McCain and Lindsey Graham have been foaming at the mouth for nearly a year to send the military into Syria, and they have brought along Senate wunderkind Marco Rubio, a name being bandied about for Vice President, to help carry the banner.  If it is clear that American's are not in favor of these missions, can the GOP build a national strategy on the backs of those who have loudly called for another Middle East intervention?

Washington Post/ABC News Relevant Poll Numbers

-17. On another subject: All in all, considering the costs to the United States versus the benefits to the United States, do you think the war in Afghanistan has been worth fighting, or not? Do you feel that way strongly or somewhat?

            ----- Worth fighting ----   --- Not worth fighting --     No 
            NET   Strongly   Somewhat   NET   Somewhat   Strongly   opinion 
3/10/12     35       17         18      60       16         44         5
6/5/11      43       23         20      54       15         40         3
3/13/11     31       17         14      64       16         49         5
12/12/10    34       18         16      60       18         43         5
7/11/10     43       24         19      53       15         38         4
6/6/10      44       26         18      53       13         41         3
4/25/10     45       26         19      52       15         38         3
12/13/09    52       33         19      44       10         35         4
11/15/09    44       30         14      52       14         38         4
10/18/09*   47       28         19      49       13         36         4 
9/12/09     46       28         18      51       14         37         3
8/17/09     47       31         15      51       10         41         3
7/18/09     51       34         18      45       11         34         4
3/29/09     56       37         19      41       12         28         4
2/22/09     50       34         17      47        9         37         3
12/14/08    55       NA         NA      39       NA         NA         5
7/13/08     51                          45                             4
2/25/07     56        "          "      41        "          "         3
*10/18/09 "was" and "has been" wording half sampled. Previous "was."

-20. On another subject, based on what you’ve heard or read, do you think Iran is or is not trying to develop nuclear weapons?
 
           Is   Is not   No opinion
3/10/12    84     9          8
10/18/09   87     8          4



21. To try to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, would you support or oppose [ITEM]? Do you feel that way strongly or somewhat?
 
3/10/12 – Summary Table

                                       ---- Support -----    ----- Oppose -----   No 
                                       NET  Strgly.  Smwt.   NET  Smwt.  Strgly.  op.
a. The United States bombing Iran's 
   nuclear development sites           41     27      14     53    18      35      6
b. Increasing international economic 
   sanctions against Iran              74     54      20     21     9      11      5
c. Direct diplomatic talks between 
   the United States and Iran to try 
   to resolve the situation            81     60      21     16     5      12      2 

Trend:

a. The United States bombing Iran’s nuclear development sites

           -------- Support -------    -------- Oppose ---------     No 
           NET   Strongly   Somewhat   NET   Somewhat   Strongly   opinion
3/10/12    41       27         14      53       18         35         6
10/18/09   42       NA         NA      54       NA         NA         4
1/26/06*   42       NA         NA      54       NA         NA         4
* “Iran says it is refining uranium to use in nuclear power plants. Other countries are concerned Iran may also use this uranium in nuclear weapons…”

b. Increasing international economic sanctions against Iran

            -------- Support -------    -------- Oppose ---------     No 
            NET   Strongly   Somewhat   NET   Somewhat   Strongly   opinion
3/10/12     74       54         20      21        9         11         5
10/18/09*   78       NA         NA      18       NA         NA         4
1/26/06*    71       NA         NA      26       NA         NA         3
*”Imposing international…”

c. Direct diplomatic talks between the United States and Iran to try to resolve the situation

            -------- Support -------    -------- Oppose ---------     No 
            NET   Strongly   Somewhat   NET   Somewhat   Strongly   opinion
3/10/12     81       60         21      16        5         12         2
10/18/09    82       NA         NA      18       NA         NA         1



22. Would you support or oppose Israel bombing Iran’s nuclear development sites?
 
          Support   Oppose   No opinion
3/10/12     42        51          7