Day: October 5, 2023

The nationalism of the Aliyev regime suffers from chronic pettiness, a self-realization that its banality breeds an artificial eulogization of historical relevance. Limited in historic values that give substance to a society’s conceptualization of its national spirit, the Azeri[1] ethos faces a profound dilemma: its nationalism is defined by its emptiness [in this article “Azeri” is a specific reference to the Azeri Turkic people that comprise approximately 90% of Azerbaijan, while “Azerbaijani” refers to citizens of the state of Azerbaijan – Editor]. This vacuity in its collective consciousness not only suffocates a desire for historical pride, but it also delimits the re-articulation of a modern nationalism.

The scholarly literature notes the conflict in post-Soviet Azerbaijan between Sovietized and emerging identities, giving way to diverging conceptions of culture, identity, ethnicity, and nationality.[2] To fill this void, modern Azerbaijan, under the autocratic leadership of Ilham Aliyev, has doubled down on this emptiness. Lacking its “own” language, alphabet, historical “glory” or exclusive ethnic identity,[3] Aliyev’s Azerbaijan has sought to fabricate an alternative historical and national identity. This fabrication, however, is not the recreation of a new identity, but rather, the negation and absorption of another’s—that of the Armenians. The Azeri nationalism of Aliyev is not so much defined by Azeri-ness as it is defined by it’s anti-Armenianness. Its logic of Armenophobia,[4] then, is not simply an exercise in cultural, racial, and political chauvinism; it is also a necessary precondition of Azeri nationalism.

How has the Aliyev government gone about doing this? It has done so by relying on historical revisionism and promoting a state ideology that embraces the nonsensical. It has attempted to erase and destroy Armenian history in its territories to argue that Armenians never lived on these lands. It made a mockery of itself among the global academic world by claiming that the Azeris are the descendants of the Caucasian Albanians, thus seeking to provide historical substance to the Azeri identity. It has absurdly claimed that the Azeris were the first Christian people of the region, but they in fact converted to Islam only in recent history. It has thrown tantrums when maps of history do not show an “ancient” Azerbaijan. It has destroyed Armenian iconography in an illogical attempt to demonstrate that Armenian language and art never existed. It has internationally proclaimed that not only the Republic of Armenia, but all Armenians of the world are enemies of Azerbaijan, thus qualifying the innate racism of its state policy. It has, in its totality, basically claimed that everything Armenian is actually Azeri. In essence, it has attempted to recreate a culture and history that simply does not make sense… not even to its own people!

But why is modern Azerbaijan doing this? Why is Aliyev humiliating Azerbaijan in front of the learned world and why has he demanded that the nonsensical become state policy? Because nothingness is more terrifying. And herein lies the paradox. To escape its own emptiness, its own collective ontology of desolateness, Azeri nationalism has sought to embrace the culture, history and values of the Armenian. But this embrace requires an act of nihilism: they must kill the author and plagiarize the book. The erasure of the Armenian legacy requires its Azerbaijanization. In this context, anti-Armenianness is a prerequisite for the structuration of post-Soviet Azeri nationalism. Armenophobia is the one dominant concept that nourishes Aliyev’s otherwise empty and malnourished nationalism.

This article in no way suggests that the values, identities or histories of one people (the Armenians) is superior or better to that of another (the Azeris). But the fact remains that these are the precise terms under which Armenophobia has been cultivated by Aliyev and Azerbaijan’s faux “intelligentsia.” A coordinated state policy, the contours of Armenophobia presuppose the dehumanization of an entire people, where hatred and aversion towards an Armenian is embedded in Azerbaijan’s political culture, where disdain for all things Armenian is normalized, where degradation of the Armenian is glorified, and where, in its public discourse, the lowest and most reviled thing that anyone can be is an Armenian. It is this modality of indoctrination that allows a society, among other things, to venerate a cowardly axe-murderer, to celebrate the shelling of civilian populations and to viscerally mobilize into spontaneous protests calling for war and death to Armenians.

That this is an aporia surprises no one: Azerbaijan’s elite are projecting their own sense of insecurity. Knowing and accepting that post-Soviet Azeri nationalism struggled with substance and authenticity, and facing the humiliation of defeat at the hands of the Armenians,[5] the Azeri political leadership found itself asphyxiated by an inability to articulate a national ethos. Hateful and bitter of the Armenian, a phantom had to be constructed to appease this insecurity: the Armenian as a monster, and the subsequent need to dehumanize this monster. The end result was the distinct formulation of Azeri Armenophobia, qualified specifically in grievances against the Armenian people, and normalized as part of mainstream Azeri political culture. Temporally, the development of Armenophobia as state policy remains specific to the Ilham Aliyev regime. While anti-Armenian sentiments were fairly common prior to his administration in Azerbaijan,[6] these were neither systemic, part of state policy, nor methodically entrenched in its political culture. In this context, Azeri Armenophobia is a distinct articulation of the Aliyev regime and an inherent component of its nationalism. Elements of Armenophobia are codified in the laws of Azerbaijan, while precepts of anti-Armenianness are institutionalized in every facet of Azeri society, from education, to media, to basic social discourse. For this regime, and for this form of nationalism, to be Azerbaijani is to be Armenophobic.

Conceptually, an important question presents itself: Why is the Azeri nationalism of the Aliyev regime qualified as empty? A concept, such as nationalism, cannot be finite. It must have substance and authenticity, and most importantly, it must be qualified and justified in and of itself. Thus, in order for a concept to have substance, it must stand on its own legs and fundamentally possess deontological justification. In this context, contemporary Azerbaijani nationalism is qualified as “empty” because it is not defined by its own substance, but rather, by its opposite. It is not defined deontologically, but rather, by its negation. Simply put, it is not defined by its Azeriness, but rather, by its anti-Armenianness.

A concept of emptiness cannot be self-reflective, for there is nothing to reflect upon. Thus, the empty seeks to define itself through its opposite: the external. Armenia is the external to the emptiness of Azeri nationalism. Without the Armenian, however, Azeri nationalism collapses on its face. To satisfy this ideational void, the Azeri elite simply decided to hijack the Armenian and remold it as their own national daemon. Lacking Geist, and in desperate need of a national spirit, these autocrats did what autocrats do best: cheat. They concocted a state ideology that not only lies to its own people about their very identity, culture and history, but to deflect from this lie, they had to demonize the Other: the Armenian.

The emptiness of contemporary Azerbaijan’s nationalism is a cynical dive into the dialectical, a frantic need for self-legitimization, a desperate desire for authenticity and a clear recognition of the Aliyev regime’s ideological impotence. The poverty of its national ethos has led to an intellectual famine, a scarcity in intellection that has birthed a hunger for ideas. This hunger, of course, has been satisfied by absorbing the Armenian. The Armenian, to the political Azeri, is the archetype of historic and national substance. And Azeri nationalism precisely seeks to steal this archetype. It is no wonder that every conception of contemporary Azeri nationalistic value is defined by its negation: the absorption and alienation of the Armenian as historic and ontological reality.

Following Azerbaijan’s military seizure of Nagorno-Karabakh, the European Parliament is set to adopt a strong resolution today condemning Baku’s unjustified attack against the mountainous South Caucasus enclave. As requested by the Socialists and Democrats, the Parliament is calling on the EU to comprehensively review its relations with Baku. The EU should suspend the negotiations on a new EU-Azerbaijan agreement, and reduce EU dependency towards Azerbaijan gas exports.

For the S&Ds, the EU cannot morally accept negotiating a future partnership agreement with a country that blatantly violates principles of international law as well as its international obligations and is thus neither a reliable nor a trustworthy partner, as it was presented when Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced the energy partnership with Azerbaijan. The S&Ds therefore urge to reconsider the ‘strategic partnership’ with Azerbaijan in the field of energy and to suspend oil and gas imports from Azerbaijan in case of military aggression against the territorial integrity of Armenia.

The S&Ds urge Baku to ensure the rights and security of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians, and return to negotiations as the only way forwards a sustainable resolution of the decade long conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The S&Ds also call on the EU to substantially increase its humanitarian aid to Armenia.

“We have to stop with appeasement: there must be immediate consequences for the Aliyev regime. Azerbaijan’s actions, starting with military actions and concluding with forced displacement of the ethnic Armenian population from Nagorno-Karabakh, amounting to de facto ethnic cleansing, are not acceptable. The EU must stand behind its core values – respecting human rights and international law, and its commitment to a rules-based international order,” said Marina Kaljurand, S&D MEP and chair of the European Parliament’s delegation for relations with the South Caucasus.

“First, we must reconsider our relations with Azerbaijan and make them conditional. A country taking military action cannot be considered an EU ‘strategic economic partner’, as Baku wishes to brand itself. The EU has political leverage and has to use it! The EU’s strong response should also include the sanctioning of responsible Azerbaijani authorities, halting visa facilitation agreements, and the suspension of the gas deal,” Kaljurand added. “Second, Armenia today needs the EU’s substantial humanitarian and political support more than ever before, not only to deal with the immediate challenge of taking care of the refugees, but also to withstand Russia’s pressure and discourage any further aggression from Baku. It is time to upgrade the current partnership agreement with Yerevan as a sign of the EU’s political and economic support”.

“I urge Azerbaijan to refrain from any further violence or hate speech against an already vulnerable population and I call on Armenia and Azerbaijan to conclude a peace agreement that will bring lasting peace and stability to the region, as well as the safety and the rights of Armenians who decide to return to their homes in Nagorno-Karabakh,” concluded Kaljurand.

11:31, 5 October 2023

Contents:

Third war over Karabakh crystallizes a new balance of power in the South Caucasus

Iulia-Sabina Joja
Director, Black Sea Program

• The final military episode of the Azerbaijani-Armenian conflict over Karabakh seems to have ended, and the massive exodus of Karabakh Armenians will have profound and lasting social, political, demographic, and economic implications for the wider region.

• With Moscow and Tehran apparently no longer able or willing to actively support Yerevan in any future armed standoffs against Baku, only the West would have the clout to prevent another war in the region, should the threat of violence reemerge.

The final military episode of the Azerbaijani-Armenian conflict over Karabakh seems to have ended. The third Karabakh war lasted only 24 hours, concluding on Sept. 20, with the separatist Armenian Karabakh military forces capitulating. Unlike in the previous two wars — of 1988-1994 and September-November 2020, respectively — this time the Republic of Armenia stayed out of the fighting. As Baku claimed victory, a large exodus quickly ensued. Over the next week, 100,000 ethnic Armenians from Karabakh, roughly 80% of the heretofore disputed territory’s total population, fled to Armenia. The social, political, demographic, and economic implications of this refugee wave will be felt across the region in the years to come.

So what next for the South Caucasus? Two of the neighboring powers that have dominated the region for centuries — Iran and Russia — notably avoided getting involved in the latest deadly exchanges in Karabakh. On paper, both back Armenia, with Moscow being a treaty ally; and Russia once more negotiated the ceasefire. But Yerevan is apparently keen to rid itself of its long-term patron: Illustratively, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan declared his country’s security guarantees “ineffective.” On the other hand, Turkey, as Azerbaijan’s most important ally, seems to have stepped up as the region’s most influential power. The West — both the United States and the European Union — have played a limited role.

Even with hostilities over for now, the most contentious issue remains the 27-mile border between Iran and Armenia. Azerbaijan wants to develop a parallel east-west land bridge (which Baku calls the “Zangezur Corridor”) across this Armenian territory to connect to its Nakhchivan exclave. But such a land bridge — if Azerbaijan manages to secure extraterritorial rights for itself there — would effectively cut Iran off from Armenia. According to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Iranian government has dropped its vehement opposition to the Zangezur Corridor. With Moscow and Tehran apparently no longer able or willing to actively support Yerevan in any future armed standoffs against Baku, only the West would have the clout and relatively impartiality to prevent another war in the region, should the threat of violence reemerge. In the aftermath of the Third Karabakh War, the coming months will be crucial to stabilize the South Caucasus for the long term.

Follow on Twitter: @IuliJo

Menendez case unlikely to be a game changer for US-Turkey ties

Gönül Tol
Director of Turkey Program and Senior Fellow, Black Sea Program

• With Sen. Bob Menendez stepping down temporarily from the chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is hopeful that Turkey’s stalled bid to purchase F-16 fighter jets from the U.S. might soon be resolved.

• But the goodwill generated by Turkey’s early moves on Ukraine has been dampened by Erdoğan’s decision to hold up NATO expansion, and Washington’s frustration with Erdoğan’s U-turns means that Sen. Menendez is not Ankara’s only problem.

On Sept. 22, federal prosecutors accused a top Democrat and long-time critic of Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, gold bars, and other gifts in exchange for using his position as the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to benefit the government of Egypt and three New Jersey businessmen. After the indictment, Menendez stepped down temporarily from his committee chairmanship, in line with Senate Democratic rules. President Erdoğan is hopeful that this will pave the way for the resolution of Turkey’s stalled bid to purchase F-16 fighter jets from the United States to modernize its Air Force.

In 2021, following Ankara’s removal from the F-35 program in 2019 due to its purchase of Russia’s S-400 missile-defense system, Turkey made a request to its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) ally to buy 40 Lockheed Martin-made F-16 fighter jets and nearly 80 modernization kits for its existing warplanes. The Biden administration backs Turkey’s bid, but many in the U.S. Congress have opposed the sale, citing Erdoğan’s problematic foreign policy behavior and record on human rights. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine helped to ease some of the anti-Erdoğan sentiment in Congress. While they remained critical of many of Erdoğan’s policies, some members appreciated Turkey’s early stance in the conflict. Shortly after Moscow’s February 2022 invasion, Turkey officially labeled Russia’s move as a war, which enabled Ankara to invoke the Montreux Convention and restrict some warships from passing through key waterways to the Black Sea. It also sold drones to Ukraine. These moves helped Erdoğan accumulate goodwill among some formerly critical members of Congress.

That goodwill, however, is now mostly gone thanks to Erdoğan’s decision to hold up enlargement of NATO to extract concessions from the West. Erdoğan dragged his feet on Finland’s and Sweden’s accession for months before finally agreeing to let Finland into the Alliance in March. Sweden’s accession is still waiting. The Biden administration had hoped to welcome Sweden as a NATO ally at the Alliance’s summit in Lithuania in July. The Turkish side had assured the administration it was going to happen, but at the last minute, President Erdoğan told reporters that Sweden’s NATO accession should be linked to Turkey’s membership in the European Union. Erdoğan’s U-turn angered the U.S. administration and Congress. Everyone in Washington is now skeptical about Turkey’s assurances that its parliament will approve Sweden’s bid in October. “I will believe it when I see it,” a Department of Defense official who has been involved in the discussions told this author recently.

Erdoğan wants Washington to approve the sale of the F-16s first, before he lifts his opposition to Sweden’s accession. Washington, for its part, wants to see Sweden in NATO first, before moving ahead with the sale.

Washington’s frustration with Erdoğan’s U-turns means that Sen. Menendez is not Ankara’s only problem. Menendez’s legal troubles might make things less complicated for Erdoğan, but there is still plenty of resentment in Washington at his efforts to hold NATO enlargement hostage to his ever-growing list of demands.

Follow on Twitter: @gonultol

America’s policy on Iran remains a weak link in its Middle East strategy

Brian Katulis
Vice President of Policy

• As the Biden administration steps up its diplomatic engagement in the Middle East, Iran continues to pose a challenge to regional stability and order via its nuclear program, destabilizing regional actions, support for terrorism, repression of its own people, and stepped-up efforts to build cheap military drones that it provides to other malign actors.

• Iran’s drone program undercuts Middle Eastern stability, puts American soldiers in harm’s way, and prolongs the war in Ukraine by providing military support to Russia.

The Biden administration has increased its diplomatic engagement in the Middle East in an effort to set the conditions for a possible normalization deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Yet achieving diplomatic progress in a volatile part of the world that faces many security challenges is difficult, and one of the biggest threats to regional stability comes from Iran.

Iran’s nuclear program continues to exceed the limits set by the 2015 nuclear deal, and Tehran’s lack of full cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) raises concerns about a possible nuclear arms race in the near future. The country continues to maintain a network of non-state groups that conduct attacks and pose threats around the region, prompting the United States to step up its military operations and drills with Middle Eastern partners. Moreover, the Iranian regime’s ongoing repression of its own people and extensive human rights abuses, accelerated last year in response to the massive popular protests against the death of Mahsa Amini, show the measures the leadership will take to maintain its grip on power.

One other dimension of the challenges posed by Iran is its burgeoning drone warfare effort, a program that not only undercuts Middle Eastern stability but also offers support to Russia’s war against Ukraine. In a briefing at the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency’s (DIA) headquarters this past week, this author saw firsthand the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) produced by Iran and employed in places like Iraq and Ukraine. The U.S. government briefer hewed closely to this unclassified report on the subject produced by the DIA last summer and discussed how Iran remains an “acute and persistent threat” across the Middle East, despite recent trends toward diplomatic de-escalation between Iran and some of its neighbors.

The reassembled debris on display from drones recovered in Iraq and Ukraine included components traced directly back to Iran. The briefer explained how attack UAVs of this type, ranging in cost from $10,000-$20,000, have become an important tool in the Iranian regime’s efforts to shape the security landscape across the Middle East. These drones have been used against U.S. troops in the region. At the same time, several news organizations have documented how Iran has aided Russia in producing thousands of these unmanned systems for use against Ukraine. The drones are reportedly constructed with certain components built by corporations in Europe and the United States, demonstrating the critical limitations in the West’s efforts to disrupt Iranian (and Russian) military-industrial supply chains. Iran’s drone program, with its close links to Russia, has added another dimension to the already complicated effort to advance a new U.S. policy on Iran.

Last week, much of the U.S. policy discussion on Iran was consumed by a report contending an Iranian influence operation from nearly a decade ago targeting American and European policy circles. What that mostly self-absorbed debate over those allegations ignored, however, was the grim reality of repeat failures by successive U.S. administrations to live up to the Iran policy goals they had set for themselves.

America’s policy on Iran remains one of the weakest links in its overall approach to the Middle East.

Follow on Twitter: @Katulis

As Libyan strongman explores deepened relationship with Russia, US has multiple sanctions options

Jonathan M. Winer
Non-Resident Scholar

• Libyan warlord Khalifa Hifter met with U.S. military and diplomatic officials less than a week before visiting Moscow, and there is talk of him trying to push Libya’s House of Representatives to endorse a joint Libyan-Russian defense agreement, which would represent a direct challenge to fundamental American national, regional, and global security interests.

• In response, Washington could impose sanctions on Hifter under any of three of major U.S. sanctions programs — Russia/Ukraine, Magnitsky Act, and Libya — all of which might readily be applied to his actions.

In the three weeks since Mediterranean Storm Daniel caused the city of Derna’s dams to collapse, resulting in an estimated 4,000 dead and 8,500 missing and presumed lost, the humanitarian catastrophe continues to unfold not only for the families of the dead but for some 43,000 displaced people, including thousands of Libyan children.

While international organizations and aid groups have pledged to help with the rescue, the Benghazi-based de facto military overseer of Derna, Khalifa Hifter, who conquered and took control of the city in June 2018, spent his time seeking to turn the catastrophe to his own advantage. On Sept. 21, he posed for photographs with United States General Michael Langley and Special Envoy Richard Norland while discussing military reunification, countering terrorism, and getting foreign forces out of Libya. Five days later, Hifter popped up in Moscow, where he was given the full red-carpet treatment, before meeting with Russian Deputy Defense Minister Yunus-bek Yevkurov and President Vladmir Putin.

He’d previously met with Yevkurov in eastern Libya on Aug. 22, 2023, one day before the plane crash just north of Moscow that killed Wagner Group head Yevgeny Prigozhin. The parties involved claimed the timing was just a coincidence. With Prigozhin dead, the obvious question for the two sides was whether there was a deal to be had, whereby Hifter could secure still more military, economic, and political support from Russia, while Russia obtained further guarantees that it could maintain its base(s) in Libya indefinitely.

Over the decades, Hifter has worked for many powers, including Russia and the U.S. He was educated and trained as a military officer (and spy) in the Soviet Union in the mid-1970s. On being abandoned by Moammar Gadhafi after losing a war with Chad, Hifter moved to Langley, Virginia, where he reportedly worked for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the Reagan years. Since returning to Libya amid the 2011 uprising after 30 years of exile, Hifter has taken advantage of relationships with Egypt, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates, as well as Russia, among others, to secure his position as the country’s most significant warlord.

The U.S. wants the Wagner Group and its state-sponsored “mercenaries” out of Libya, one of the most important regional “keys” to Africa. Russia, with Hifter’s help, intends to keep them there. There is current talk of Hifter asking Libya’s House of Representatives, still controlled by his sometime ally in the east, Aguila Saleh Issa, to swiftly endorse a joint Libyan-Russian defense agreement. Any such accord would represent a direct challenge to fundamental U.S. national, regional, and global security interests.

In response, Washington could impose sanctions on Hifter under any of three of major U.S. sanctions programs: Russia/Ukraine; Magnitsky Act, applied to those who carry out serious human rights violations while lining their pockets; and Libya, recently updated by President Joe Biden, which authorize sanctions for such negative acts as arms violations, actions to delay the political transition, misappropriation of state assets, attacks against Libyan ports, coercion of Libyan state institutions, and the targeting of civilians with acts of violence — all of which could readily be applied to Hifter’s actions.

The U.S. faced significant criticism for the Langley/Norland meetings, which were compared to discussing fire safety with an arsonist. But Hifter would be mistaken to assume that the Biden administration’s commitment to Libya is too weak for it to respond forcefully when faced with further evidence of his allying himself with Russia, the Wagner Group, and Putin.

Follow on Twitter: @JonathanMaWiner

The continued souring of Afghan-Pakistan relations

Marvin G. Weinbaum
Director, Afghanistan and Pakistan Studies

• Troubled by the surge in domestic terrorism that has come with Taliban rule, Pakistan has increasingly adopted a tough stance toward Afghanistan, with both the acting prime minister and the army chief recently threatening that Pakistan is prepared to take more vigorous military action to root out the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan.

• Feeling the heat, Afghan authorities seem now to be showing some greater receptiveness to Pakistan’s security concerns, pledging to relocate the TTP away from the border areas and announcing the arrest of 200 suspected militants accused of involvement in attacks on Pakistani security forces.

Pakistan’s having “buyer’s remorse” is a refrain often used to describe how its leaders must be feeling since the Afghan Taliban seized power in Kabul more than two years ago. Their disappointment is with a movement Pakistan had backed since the mid-1990s in the hope that once in power the Taliban would help block India’s influence in Afghanistan and agree to dismantle the sanctuaries that Pakistan’s adversary, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), has established there over the last decade.

Troubled by the surge in domestic terrorism that has come with Taliban rule, Pakistan has increasingly adopted a tough stance toward its western neighbor. In seeking to destroy TTP encampments inside Afghanistan, Pakistan’s military regularly clashes with Taliban forces. In its most aggressive move, in April 2022, Pakistan carried out well-publicized air strikes against TTP training camps across eastern Afghanistan that resulted in the killing of many militants but also dozens of civilians. Pakistan has as well inflicted significant losses on Afghan trade by periodically closing its border with Afghanistan, the last time this past September for nine days at the busy Torkham crossing. Recently, the Islamabad government has announced plans for the deportation of 1.1 million undocumented refugees, using as a pretext their involvement in anti-state activities and crimes.

Pakistan has also raised the sharpness of its rhetoric. During his speech at the 78th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on Sept. 22, Pakistan’s interim prime minister, Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar, asserted that currently, his country’s foremost priority is to prevent and counter all terrorism emanating from Afghanistan. On the sidelines of UNGA, the acting prime minister charged that multiple players in the Taliban regime have vested interests in backing the terrorists. Both he and Army Chief Asim Munir have also recently threatened that Pakistan is prepared to take more vigorous military action to root out the TTP in Afghanistan. Ironically, each has as well questioned the very legitimacy of the Taliban regime to which Pakistan contributed so much over the years to place in power.

Feeling the heat, Afghan authorities seem now to be showing some greater receptiveness to Pakistan’s security concerns. The Kabul government has repeated a pledge to relocate the TTP, which it refers to as “Waziristan refugees,” away from the border areas, and last week the Kabul government also announced the arrest of 200 suspected militants accused of being involved in multiple attacks on Pakistani security forces. An understanding to increase cooperation was supposedly achieved during a recent meeting in Kabul between the Pakistani envoy, Asif Ali Durrani, and Afghanistan’s acting Taliban foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi. But while the Kabul government has apparently given up denying the presence in their country of any anti-Pakistan militants, it has significantly not denounced or severed its long-established ties to the TTP.

Taliban officials have consistently insisted that for Pakistan to meet the challenges posed by its domestic terrorism, it should be doing more on its side of the border. But rather than undertaking systematic military efforts to root out reinfiltrated TTP fighters in Pakistan’s border areas, Pakistani authorities have found it easier to broadly target Afghan refugees illegally residing in Pakistan, accusing them of playing a significant role in deeply entrenched terrorist networks said to be operating across the country. Recently, Counter-Terrorism Departments in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab provinces claim to have carried out numerous intelligence-based operations and succeeded in dismantling a large extortion racket benefiting the TTP. They also announced having thwarted a major terrorist attack by apprehending illegal Afghan nationals associated with either the TTP or Islamic State-Khorasan Province.

It remains to be seen how far the governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan are willing to go to curtail TTP activities. The Afghan regime’s long, close working ties and ideological affinities to the militant group leave much room for doubt. Both countries are also burdened by a history of deep mutual suspicions that long predate the Afghan Taliban and the still unresolved ethnic issue of creating a Pashtunistan.

Research assistant Naad-e-Ali Sulehria contributed to this piece.

Follow on Twitter: @mgweinbaum

Photo by EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP via Getty Images

Say what you will about Donald Trump, he has not lost his capacity to surprise. Trump’s declaration of allegiance to New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez caught me unawares. I used to think Trump and the Republican Party he leads were blindly partisan. Now I discover they’re blindly bipartisan when it comes to support for political corruption.

Like an idiot, I worried that Senator Chuck Schumer’s tepid response to the indictment of Menendez would be a gift to Trump. “Bob Menendez has been a dedicated public servant and is always fighting hard for the people of New Jersey,” Schumer said initially. “He has a right to due process and a fair trial.” Oh, please. After other Democrats (most notably Menendez’s New Jersey Senate colleague and onetime character witness, Cory Booker) called on Menendez to resign, Schumer toughened up, but not by much. “Like you, I was just deeply disappointed, disturbed when I read the indictment,” Schumer said. “For senators, there’s a much, much higher standard” than what’s merely legal, Schumer explained, and “Senator Menendez fell way, way below that standard.” Schumer made it sound as though Menendez got caught parking in front of a fire hydrant.

I feared it would be all too easy for Trump to say: “I get indicted for demanding that every ballot be counted, and Democrats call me a crook. Menendez gets caught with envelopes stuffed with cash and gold bars, and Cryin’ Chuck Schumer calls him a ‘dedicated public servant.’”

I also feared that candidates at Wednesday’s Republican debate would be all over Menendez. After all, Republicans piled merrily onto Hunter Biden when he was indicted two weeks ago on gun charges, even though the president’s son holds no public office. Imagine, I figured, what they’ll say about a sitting United States senator, a Democrat, who got himself a Mercedes-Benz convertible by giving up intelligence secrets. (I presume the “non-public information” Menendez handed Egyptians about embassy employees in Cairo, though not classified, included the names of a few spies.) It wasn’t even Menendez’s first indictment for political corruption. His previous trial ended with a hung jury and a letter of admonition from the Senate Ethics Committee. Did I mention that Menendez hired Hunter’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell? Yes, Lowell was Menendez’s lawyer first, defending him in the earlier corruption case, but since when did Republicans care about the details when hurling mud?

My fears were unfounded. It doesn’t matter that Schumer lacks the courage to call for Menendez’s resignation, because Republicans aren’t calling for it either.

At the debate, held just a few hours after Menendez’s New York City arraignment, Menendez’s name did not come up. Not even once! And in a Thursday interview with Henry Rodgers of The Daily Caller, the hard-right news site co-founded by Tucker Carlson, Trump did everything but declare Menendez his comrade in arms. “I think this was an attack,” Trump said about Menendez’s indictment, “that shows again, in a certain different way, because he wasn’t getting along too well with the Democrats and with Biden and he disagrees with Biden on a lot of things.” Trump also said the indictment was evidence of “a two-tier system of justice because Biden has stolen a lot more than he has. I mean he has taken a lot more money than Menendez.”

I’m not sure what Trump means when he says Biden thinks Menendez isn’t a team player. Yes, he’s a bit on the hawkish side, more so than most of his fellow congressional Democrats. But so is Biden. In today’s curious ideological configuration, it’s mostly Republicans agitating to cut off aid to Ukraine and mostly Democrats who want to keep the spigot on. Granted, Republicans want to start a war with Mexico, but Menendez is not on board with that. On immigration he is, if anything, a whisker more dovish than Biden.

You certainly can’t find evidence of disagreement with Biden in Menendez’s voting record. According to FiveThirtyEight, Menendez has voted with Biden 100 percent of the time, one of only nine senators to do so. NBC News turned up the interesting fact that Menendez blocked consideration of a bipartisan bill to toughen the Foreign Agents Registration Act in 2020. But that was before Biden was president, and Menendez may have been acting to protect candidate Biden; a Democratic staff email obtained by NBC News warned that “the R’s will seek to weaponize” the bill against Hunter Biden, either during the 2020 campaign or, if Biden got elected, after.

Trump’s suggestion that Biden has “taken a lot more money than Menendez” is pure fantasy. It builds on an unhinged accusation Trump’s been making lately that Biden “got paid for Rigging the Election,” to quote a September 24 Trump post on Truth Social. Why Biden would need to be bribed into rigging an election in his own favor—and how Biden could achieve that as a private citizen—went unexplained.

Of greater interest in Trump’s Truth Social post, which came two days after Menendez’s indictment, is that this first comment on the matter took the Shame-on-Bob line that I expected:

On Sunday on Truth Social, Trump said it was obvious from “the way he lived” that Menendez was a crook, and shame on Menendez’s fellow Democrats for protecting him. On Wednesday in his Detroit speech to nonunion auto workers, Trump withheld criticism of Menendez and said Biden’s unspecified crimes “would’ve made Senator Menendez look like a baby.” By Thursday, Trump was ready to claim Menendez as a fellow martyr—persecuted, like Trump himself, over political differences.

Granted, Trump’s public statements tend toward the erratic, and one can make too much of his perceived shifts. But the direction of these shifts aligned him better with what other Republicans were saying. According to Politico, Senator Kevin Cramer, Republican of North Dakota, urged Menendez not to resign. (In a closed-door session Thursday with Democrats, Menendez said he will not.) Senator Tommy Tuberville, Republican of Alabama, said Democrats wanted Menendez to resign only so that a Democratic New Jersey governor could replace him. Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, insinuated the same. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, following a trajectory similar to Trump’s, said on Sunday that Menendez should resign, but two days later backtracked and said that was up to Menendez. Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, articulated the GOP line most clearly. He said that while the charges against him were “serious and troubling,” it was also true that “the Department of Justice has a troubling record of failure and corruption in cases against public figures, from Ted Stevens to Bob McDonnell to Donald Trump to Bob Menendez the last time around.” Note that he attached the word “corruption” to the Justice Department, not to Menendez.

News commentary on congressional Republicans’ muted response to Menendez’s legal troubles has mostly said that Republicans don’t want to criticize Menendez lest they invite criticism of Trump and his four indictments. What’s sauce for the goose, they fear, can be sauce for the gander. But that analysis presumes the Republicans are playing defense, which they aren’t.

The GOP is playing offense. Republicans have declared war on the FBI. They’ve created an entire Select Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. That these efforts are hilariously incompetent doesn’t detract from the reality that congressional Republicans have joined Trump in seeking a wholesale delegitimization of the criminal justice system. It’s only a hop, skip, and a jump to openly embracing political corruption, even when the crook is a Democrat. Don’t forget that it was Trump who commuted the prison sentence of Rod Blagojevich, the onetime Democratic governor of Illinois who hung a “For Sale” sign on a Senate vacancy. Trump demonstrated an affinity for criminals well before he entered politics. He is corrupt himself. It makes sense that he’s now positioning himself as an advocate for corruption, Republican and Democratic alike.

Israel has quietly helped fuel Azerbaijan’s campaign to recapture Nagorno-Karabakh, supplying powerful weapons to Azerbaijan ahead of its lightening offensive last month that brought the ethnic Armenian enclave back under its control, officials and experts say.Just weeks before Azerbaijan launched its 24-hour assault on September 19, Azerbaijani military cargo planes repeatedly flew between a southern Israeli airbase and an airfield near Nagorno-Karabakh, according to flight tracking data and Armenian diplomats, even as Western governments were urging peace talks.The flights rattled Armenian officials in Yerevan, long wary of the strategic alliance between Israel and Azerbaijan, and shined a light on Israel’s national interests in the restive region south of the Caucasus Mountains.

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“For us, it is a major concern that Israeli weapons have been firing at our people,” Arman Akopian, Armenia’s ambassador to Israel, told The Associated Press. In a flurry of diplomatic exchanges, Akopian said he expressed alarm to Israeli politicians and lawmakers in recent weeks over Israeli weapons shipments.“I don’t see why Israel should not be in the position to express at least some concern about the fate of people being expelled from their homeland,” he told AP.Azerbaijan’s September blitz involving heavy artillery, rocket launchers and drones — largely supplied by Israel and Turkey, according to experts — forced Armenian separatist authorities to lay down their weapons and sit down for talks on the future of the separatist region.The Azerbaijani offensive killed over 200 Armenians in the enclave, the vast majority of them fighters, and some 200 Azerbaijani troops, according to officials.There are ramifications beyond the volatile enclave of 4,400 square kilometers (1,700 square miles). The fighting prompted over 100,000 people — more than 80 percent of the enclave’s ethnic Armenian residents — to flee in the last two weeks. Azerbaijan has pledged to respect the rights of ethnic Armenians.Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has termed the exodus “a direct act of an ethnic cleansing.” Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry strongly rejected the accusation, saying the departures are a “personal and individual decision and (have) nothing to do with forced relocation.”

Israel’s foreign and defense ministries declined to comment on the use of Israeli weapons in Nagorno-Karabakh or on Armenian concerns about its military partnership with Azerbaijan. In July, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant visited Baku, the Azerbaijan capital, where he praised the countries’ military cooperation and joint “fight against terrorism.”

Israel has a big stake in Azerbaijan, which serves as a critical source of oil and is a staunch ally against Israel’s archenemy Iran. It is also a lucrative customer of sophisticated arms.

“There’s no doubt about our position in support of Azerbaijan’s defense,” said Arkady Mil-man, Israel’s former ambassador to Azerbaijan and current senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. “We have a strategic partnership to contain Iran.”Although once resource-poor Israel now has plenty of natural gas off its Mediterranean coast, Azerbaijan still supplies at least 40 percent of Israel’s oil needs, keeping cars and trucks on its roads. Israel turned to Baku’s offshore deposits in the late 1990s, creating an oil pipeline through the Turkish transport hub of Ceyan that isolated Iran, which at the time capitalized on oil flowing through its pipelines from Kazakhstan to world markets.Azerbaijan has long been suspicious of Iran, its fellow Shia Muslim neighbor on the Caspian Sea, and chafed at its support for Armenia, which is Orthodox Christian. Iran has accused Azerbaijan of hosting a base for Israeli intelligence operations against it — a claim that Azerbaijan and Israel deny.“It’s clear to us that Israel has an interest in keeping a military presence in Azerbaijan, using its territory to observe Iran,” Armenian diplomat Tigran Balayan said.Few have benefited more from the two countries’ close relations than Israeli military contractors. Experts estimate Israel supplied Azerbaijan with nearly 70 percent of its arsenal between 2016 and 2020 — giving Azerbaijan an edge against Armenia and boosting Israel’s large defense industry.“Israeli arms have played a very significant role in allowing the Azerbaijani army to reach its objectives,” said Pieter Wezeman, senior researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, which tracks arms sales.Israeli long-range missiles and exploding drones known as loitering munitions have made up for Azerbaijan’s small air force, Wezeman said, even at times striking deep within Armenia itself. Meanwhile, Israeli Barak-8 surface-to-air missiles have protected Azerbaijan’s airspace in shooting down missiles and drones, he added.Just ahead of last month’s offensive, the Azerbaijani defense ministry announced the army conducted a missile test of Barak-8. Its developer, Israel Aerospace Industries, declined to comment on Azerbaijan’s use of its air defense system and combat drones.

But Azerbaijan has raved about the success of Israeli drones in slicing through the Armenian defenses and tipping the balance in the bloody six-week war in 2020.Its defense minister in 2016 called a combat drone manufactured by Israel’s Aeronautics Group “a nightmare for the Armenian army,” which backed the region’s separatists during Azerbaijan’s conflict with Nagorno-Karabakh that year.President Ilham Aliyev in 2021 — a year of deadly Azerbaijan-Armenian border clashes — was captured on camera smiling as he stroked the small Israeli suicide drone “Harop” during an arms showcase.Israel has deployed similar suicide drones during deadly army raids against Palestinian militants in the occupied West Bank.“We’re glad for this cooperation, it was quite supportive and quite beneficial for defense,” Azerbaijani’s ambassador to Israel, Mukhtar Mammadov told the AP, speaking generally about Israel’s support for the Azerbaijani military. “We’re not hiding it.”At a crucial moment in early September — as diplomats scrambled to avert an escalation — flight tracking data shows that Azerbaijani cargo planes began to stream into Ovda, a military base in southern Israel with a 3,000-meter-long airstrip, known as the only airport in Israel that handles the export of explosives.The AP identified at least six flights operated by Azerbaijan’s Silk Way Airlines landing at Ovda airport between September 1 and September 17 from Baku, according to aviation-tracking website FlightRadar24.com. Azerbaijan launched its offensive two days later.During those six days, the Russian-made Ilyushin Il-76 military transport lingered on Ovda’s tarmac for several hours before departing for either Baku or Ganja, the country’s second-largest city, just north of Nagorno-Karabakh.In March, an investigation by the Haaretz newspaper said it had counted 92 Azerbaijani military cargo flights to Ovda airport from 2016-2020. Sudden surges of flights coincided with upticks of fighting in Nagorno-Karabkh, it found.“During the 2020 war, we saw flights every other day and now, again, we see this intensity of flights leading up to the current conflict,” said Akopian, the Armenian ambassador. “It is clear to us what’s happening.”Israel’s defense ministry declined to comment on the flights. The Azerbaijani ambassador, Mammadov, said he was aware of the reports but declined to comment.The decision to support an autocratic government against an ethnic and religious minority has fueled a debate in Israel about the country’s permissive arms export policies. Of the top 10 arms manufactures globally, only Israel and Russia lack legal restrictions on weapons exports based on human rights concerns.“If anyone can identify with (Nagorno-Karabakh) Armenians’ continuing fear of ethnic cleansing it is the Jewish people,” said Avidan Freedman, founder of the Israeli advocacy group Yanshoof, which seeks to stop Israeli arm sales to human rights violators. “We’re not interested in becoming accomplices.”

Read more:

Azerbaijan says detained former Nagorno-Karabakh separatist president Harutyunyan

Russia says it held talks with US and EU on Nagorno-Karabakh ahead of crisis

Armenia says one dead, two wounded in earlier cross-border fire