Afrasianet - Ahmed Sabri Alsayed Ali - Did the Americans commit a downfall that could corrupt the Turkish project supported by them in the Caucasus, Central Asia, and even in the Arab East?
In mid-January, the Americans concluded an agreement with Armenia that included strategic cooperation in the fields of economy, defense and security, which was preceded by the United States announcing its intention to provide more than $65 million in aid to Armenia, 50 percent more than two years ago. The president of the European Commission also announced that she had promised 270 million euros to help Armenia over four years.
This rapid rush of the United States and the European Union towards Armenia cannot go unnoticed in the Caucasus, so that Americans and Europeans clearly underestimate history, geography and even religion in their view of things.
During the past period, the Americans have shown support for Turkish projects in the Caucasus, Central Asia and the Arab East, which mainly seek to destabilize Russian influence and blockade Iran, and then encircle China in partnership with the Indian project in South Asia and the Indian Ocean, and the Caucasus (especially Azerbaijan) represents the cornerstone of this Turkish project that extends its activity from China in the east to the Red Sea in the west, but this new step towards Armenia is certainly not in his favor at all, especially after the successes he achieved in Both Syria and Azerbaijan, which makes it a strong question about their purpose.
It is clear that the American vision relied strongly on past successes in Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia starting in 2018, but the end of 2024 witnessed an unexpected change, as the Georgian Dream Party was able to achieve a majority in the parliamentary elections, after which Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhadze announced the suspension of consideration of the start of negotiations on his country's membership in the European Union until 2028, which led to convulsive reactions from the Americans and the European Union, as it announced The United States suspended its strategic partnership with Georgia, and the European Union threatened that these decisions by the Georgian Prime Minister would have serious consequences.
The Georgian actions have led the Americans and Europeans to accelerate their cooperation with Armenia, although geographically Armenia cannot be beneficial to them alone as it seems to be trapped between Turkey, Azerbaijan, Iran and Georgia, but the repercussions of this Euro-American action will have a negative impact on Turkey's position as a spearhead of NATO in the region.
The Americans did not take into account the historical hostility between the Azerbaijanis and the Armenians, the Azerbaijanis accuse Tsarist Russia of being the one who brought the Armenians to their lands in Nagorno-Karabakh and the Zangezor Corridor linking Azerbaijan and the Nakhevan Autonomous Republic, which culminated in the last war in which the Azerbaijanis achieved a historic victory, and the Armenian relations with the United States and the West were among the reasons why Russia and Iran abandoned the Armenians in this war, and it is natural that the development of these relations to this level will force the Azerbaijanis to change their policy and get closer to Russia and Iran, as was evident from the statements of the speaker of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, during his Feb. 20 meeting with the speaker of the Azerbaijani parliament, Sahib Ghafarova, on the sidelines of the 15th session of the General Assembly of Asian Parliaments: "The trilateral communication between Iran, Azerbaijan and Russia in the economic, energy transfer and economic spheres has an impact." The speaker of the Azerbaijani parliament also responded remarkably, stressing that she agreed with Qalibaf regarding the new conditions in the South Caucasus.
This reference to the new changes in the Caucasus explains the magnitude of the shift in Azeri policies in the recent period, specifically from 2021, when it seemed that the Azerbaijanis became more inclined towards their brothers in the religious doctrine, and these tendencies were embodied in the statements of the Grand Mufti of Azerbaijan (Shiite) Allah Shukr Pashazadeh, in which he pointed out that his country won the war against Armenia thanks to the fatwa of Mr. Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, with the support of Azerbaijan.
As much as Pashazadeh's remarks sparked controversy between advocates of Turkish nationalism and advocates of Azeri specificity, they did not go unnoticed in Turkey, especially since they could not be issued without the approval of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.
Indeed, from the outset, Azerbaijan has sought balance in its relations with both Turkey and Iran. Despite its secularism and the fact that the Turkish project satisfies it nationally, the Azerbaijanis, while keen to contribute a large share to this project, also have their own peculiarities and their keenness not to be dependent on either Iran or Turkey, and the Turkish project represents only a step in the direction of their own Azerbaijani project related to Azeri nationalism, which is the new ideology adopted by the current ruling elite in Azerbaijan, which constitutes the Shiite doctrine. The duodenum is one of its sides.
Historically, the Azeris understand that their attachment to Iran has always been strong, since the pre-Islamic period, and as a state they were originally carved out of Iran, which was ruled by an Azeri family, the Qajar family. On the other hand, their past with the Turks of Anatolia is never bright, starting with the massacre orchestrated by the Ottoman Sultan Selim I of the Shiite Azeri in his lands, which killed 40,000 of them, through the Azeri revolution of Shah Quli against the Ottomans, and the resulting massacres of them, and ending with the position of When Soviet tanks stormed Baku on the night of January 20, 1990, the Prime Minister of Turkey justified Turkey's non-intervention by saying that they (i.e., Turks) were Sunnis and that the Azerisis were Shiites. Hence, the Azerbaijanis have their own calculations that will reduce their impulse towards the Turks and the United States and bring them closer to Iran and Russia, perhaps the most important of which is to preserve the gains of their recent war with Armenia.
But the question remains: Did the Americans deliberately confuse the Turkish project in the Caucasus and Central Asia? The Americans do not see the Turkish project as an independent project, but rather as a means (among other means) used to support American projects in Eurasia in general. This project was able to provide services to the Americans in order to obtain space for expansion, but Turkey's expansionist ambitions, especially in Syria and Iraq, conflicted with the American and European vision, which wants to give the Kurds a share of the Iraqi and Syrian cake, at a time when It seeks to support the plans of the Zionist entity to open the Daoud Corridor from southern Syria to the Kurdish areas in Syria and Iraq, which threatens Turkey's historical ambitions to obtain the area from Aleppo to Mosul, and most importantly their attempts to control the Syrian coast through sectarian cleansing towards the Alawites, with the aim of obtaining the Syrian share of Eastern Mediterranean gas.
Therefore, the American and Western steps towards Armenia are also aimed at trying to curb Turkey's Erdogan ambitions and put them in their normal size as a mere means of serving American projects. However, on the other hand, curtailing the Turkish project, although it will serve the Zionist plan in Syria and Iraq, will be in the interest of the countries that reject American hegemony in the Caucasus and Central Asia, especially since Armenians cannot serve Western goals in the region if they follow the same path as Ukraine, but worse geographically. They are completely surrounded by hostile peoples, most notably the Turks of Azerbaijan and Turkey.
It is possible to say that the American and Western step towards Armenia may have been very hasty in an attempt to control Turkish projects, but on the other hand it will lead to their loss of influence in the Caucasus and Central Asia through the Turkish presence, and here the Americans may bet at this point on their projects in the Indian and Pacific Oceans to confront China through the alliance with India, and to confront Russia in the Arctic Ocean, which means that the need for the Turkish project is no longer urgent after its success in overthrowing the Syrian regime, with Allowing Indians a greater role in Central Asia, in addition to its role in the Indian Ocean, to compensate for Turkey's declining influence, as India needs these steps in its conflict with China, which also wants to strengthen its influence in all India's neighboring countries.
It seems therefore that the Turkish role will take a rigid path in the coming period, whether in the Caucasus and Central Asia, or even in Syria, while maintaining its influential role in confronting Iran and chasing its influence in the Islamic world in general under the Ottoman name of Sunni character at times and Turkish nationalism at other times, especially after it became clear to what extent its expansionist ambitions in Syria contradict the American, European and even Zionist desire to grant an entity to the Kurds, and try to implement the idea of the David Passage.
On the other hand, it is clear that a greater role will be allowed for both the Zionist and Indian projects, and it is expected that they will meet in the India-US trade corridor project, which was agreed to pass through the Zionist entity, which will support greater relations between the two parties. Although India does not throw all its weight on the Americans and is very keen to develop its relations with both Russia and Iran, it meets with the Americans at one point, encircling China. What is clear is that White House officials are currently uninterested in the problem of Indian relations with Moscow and Tehran.