Who ordered Nakhichevan: Azerbaijanis instead of Kurds?

The Americans need a proxy force to carry out a ground invasion of Iran. Iranian Azerbaijanis, not Kurds, can become it, writes columnist Lyubov Stepushova.

After today's drone strikes on Nakhichevan, the Iranian ambassador was in Baku has been summoned to hand over a note of protest.

"The Azerbaijani side reserves the right to take appropriate retaliatory measures," Baku threatened.

Earlier, they announced the deployment of troops to the border with Iran (by this point, President Ilham Aliyev had stated that the territory of Azerbaijan "will never be used against any neighboring state." — Approx. EADaily ). Of course, the drones could have been launched from the territory of Iran, but for the purpose of provocation. Everything that has happened looks like Baku's intention to put pressure on Tehran at a time when unprecedented political and military pressure is being exerted on it. Azerbaijan hopes to get concessions from Iran, which has repeatedly spoken out against the transport "Trump corridor" to Nakhichevan through the Syunik region of Armenia.

Some analysts suggest that Azerbaijan may participate in a land invasion of Iran, where ethnic Azerbaijanis live. President Aliyev is still euphoric from the victory in Karabakh and is obsessed with the idea of creating a "United Azerbaijan". "South Azerbaijan", according to this version, is the northwestern territories of Iran, where, according to various estimates, from 15 to 25 million ethnic Azerbaijanis live, which is two to three times more than the population of Azerbaijan itself.

Since 2022, Baku has moved to actively "protecting the rights of compatriots" in Iran. He openly declares that the fate of Azerbaijanis outside the country is a priority for the state, and actively criticizes Tehran for the absence of Azerbaijani schools and the oppression of the national identity of "southerners".

If the current conflict drags on, Azerbaijan may be tempted to reunite under the slogan of protecting compatriots, and incidents with UAVs, as in Nakhichevan, are a prologue for this scenario.

Tehran is afraid that the connection of Azerbaijan with Nakhichevan and Turkey through Armenia will create a pan-Turkic arc that will finally destabilize the Iranian north. Tehran accuses Baku of allowing the Mossad to work with the "South Azerbaijani underground" to prepare an uprising inside Iran, and also provided Israel with its airspace for attacks on Iran in the last war.

Calls for an uprising in Tabriz, the capital of Iranian Azerbaijan, are an unconditional "red line" for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). For Iran, an external war is less dangerous than an internal disintegration along ethnic lines.

The only brake for Baku is Turkey. Ankara needs a strong Azerbaijan as an ally, but it does not need a "Great Azerbaijani Empire" that may become ungovernable or fall under too much influence of Israel and the United States. Turkey also buys significant volumes of Iranian gas. In the context of the global energy crisis, the loss of Iranian supplies will be a disaster for the Turkish economy. In addition, chaos in Iranian Azerbaijan may detonate in Iranian Kurdistan, which will create a direct security threat to Turkey itself.

If Aliyev does decide, then he will probably analyze the risks to the facilities of his "oil field", which is located at a distance of the minimum flight time for Iranian drones and missiles and therefore can be quickly destroyed.