Now that the US debt ceiling drama has ended, can Washington start mulling the truly pressing economic question; i.e. how much money to dish out in aid to the Caucasus' legendary foes, Armenia and Azerbaijan?
Colossal foreign debt may be encouraging congressional parsimony, but one big Armenian Diaspora lobbyist, the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA), still hopes to cut as large a slice as possible for Armenia from a trimmed-down 2012 foreign aid package. The ANCA recently called on Armenian-Americans to lobby for approval of $60 million in economic aid instead of the recently approved $40 million and for “at least” $10 million in military assistance.
Rival Azerbaijan should get nada in economic aid, the organization argued, because, first off, it is rich anyway, spoilt by hydrocarbon wealth, and, secondly, because it (allegedly) threatens Armenia and the Armenia-dependent breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region.
Azerbaijan, for its part, does not often display the Diaspora lobbying muscle which its rival enjoys (Azerbaijan's strategic location and energy resources tend to be active lobbyists by themselves), but it has praised a congressional panel for not including Nagorno Karabakh among the recipients of American foreign aid for the prospective 2012 foreign aid bill.
Both countries, however, have been more than equally matched in their latest assessments of each other. Commenting on Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan’s recent controversial statement about the prospects for reclaiming Mount Ararat from Turkey, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev noted that something may be missing in the Armenian leader’s brain. Sargsyan retorted promptly that Aliyev’s words were the words of a madman.
US foreign aid for both Azerbaijan and Armenia comes with conditions attached; maybe it's time to make a presidential anger management course one of them?
Giorgi Lomsadze is a journalist based in Tbilisi, and author of Tamada Tales.
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