That's the provocative conclusion reached by the newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets, which seems to have gotten a hold of a document discussing the scenario of the Tsentr-2011 military exercises between Russia and several Central Asian countries that wrapped up today. The newspaper printed a map, purportedly related to the exercise, which envisages a joint Russian-Kazakhstan force in the Caspian Sea repelling an attack from the south -- from the southeast, "up to 70 F-4s and F-5s" and from the southwest, "up to 30 F-4s, F-5s and Su-25s." Well, a quick look around the militaries of the southern part of the Caspian Sea that have those sorts of aircraft brings one to only one conclusion: it's Iran. (You can see scans of the documents, in Russian, here.)
In the scenario of the exercise, the political leadership of Iran's decides to carry out air strikes against the oil fields of the Mangistau region of Kazakhstan which are being developed by American corporations (especially Exxon-Mobil).
The paper does note, however, that the scenario "may not match the real concerns and intentions of Russian strategy." Which is probably an understatement.
It's true, however, that the unstated concern behind much of the recent Caspian naval buildups by Russia and the other post-Soviet littoral states is Iran. In a report on Kazakhstan television (via BBC Monitoring), the head of Kazakhstan's Navy noted the fact that the borders of the Caspian Sea have yet to be delimited:
A couple of weeks ago, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmahinejad visited Dushanbe, and Tajikistan's defense minister Sherali Khairulloyev made a statement that raised some eyebrows around the region:
"Today, if necessary, the Islamic Republic of Iran's Armed Forces can reach Tajikistan in two hours, and if a military presence of the Tajik side in the similar plans and programs of the Islamic Republic is necessary, the representative units of Tajikistan's Armed Forces are also ready to travel to Iran," Khairulloyev said...
"We support each other under any conditions and both friends and foes consider us as two friendly and brotherly countries," he added.
Say what? The prospect of Iranian forces intervening in Tajikistan is certainly an intriguing one. (The prospect of Tajikistan's forces doing the same in Iran is clearly just a rhetorical bone thrown to Tajikistan's dignity; it has enough trouble defending its own territory, let alone that of Iran.)
The website Asia-Plus asked a couple of Tajik analysts for their thoughts on what to make of Khairulloyev's statement, headlined "Tajikistan-Iran: Against Whom Are We Allied?" (in Russian, translation by BBC Monitoring):
Abdugani Mahmadazimov, chairman of the Association of Political Scientists of Tajikistan: "Tajikistan has no enemies, neither among the neighbours nor among other countries. However, there are problems in some issues in the region, in particular the use of border rivers for irrigation and for energy purposes. These issues should be solved through talks, not involving the military forces of foreign states. Of course, Iran has a strong air force that it can immediately deploy....
Turkey's collapsing relations with Israel over the past week or so have occasioned a new round of hand-wringing about whether the West is losing Turkey. But that drama has overshadowed another, countervailing, development: Turkey's agreement to host a NATO air defense radar. This has recently been one of the most sensitive Turkey-NATO issues; NATO wanted Turkey to host the system, but Turkey didn't want it to explicitly target Iran, even though it is obvious to everyone that that's the threat the system is intended to protect against.
But for whatever reason, the Turkish government has changed its mind, agreeing to host the radar and even (in a somewhat between-the-lines fashion) acknowledging that it has to do with Iran:
“We are of the opinion that the step taken [in deploying the radar system] is important for our region. That’s why we, as the government, have decided [to station the system in Turkey] after broad consultations,” Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said late Tuesday.
That has bolstered Turkey's relationship with NATO, argues Lale Kemal in Today's Zaman:
Turkey's decision to host on its soil the radar component of a US-sponsored missile shield project should be seen as a political decision reaffirming Ankara's ties with NATO. This decision comes at a time when the alliance has begun to perceive Turkish foreign policy goals as a deviating from those of the Western club. One Western official commented on the Turkish decision to host the missile defense radar saying, “Turkey is back in the club.”
A top Iranian military official has taken aim at neighboring Azerbaijan's president, Ilham Aliyev, saying the government in Baku may become a victim of a "people's awakening." That has prompted angry replies from Baku and a disavowal from Iran's foreign ministry. The controversy began with remarks made by Major General Hassan Firouzabadi, chief of staff of Iran's armed forces, quoted by the Fars News Agency:
"I hope Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev would pay heed to the issues which strengthen pillars of his government, otherwise he will face a dark future since people's awakening cannot be suppressed," Firouzabadi said.
"People's awakening cannot be suppressed. Some neighboring and Muslim states with which we enjoy friendly relations continue to ignore friendship criteria and give freedom to Zionist regime (of Israel) to meddle in their country's affairs. They also give command to bar Islamic rules," Firouzabadi added.
Relations between Iran and Azerbaijan have always been wary, as Iran mistrusts Baku's secular leadership and suspects them of having claims over the roughly 25 percent of Iranians who are ethnically Azeri. Tensions have increased recently with the shooting death of an Azerbaijani border guard, apparently by an Iranian counterpart. And, as the Fars piece reported:
Azerbaijani officials have been preventing Muslim schoolgirls wearing headscarves from attending schools.
Hundreds of people staged demonstrations in Azerbaijan and called on the government to overturn the decree. They also chanted slogans against the anti-Islamic law.
The peaceful demonstrations were stopped by police and security forces that resorted to force and detained a number of people.
Iran and Turkey’s competing requests for visa-free access to Azerbaijan increasingly smack of a scene from a romance novel, where a beauty in period dress faces a choice between two debonaire wooers.
Enchanted by Azerbaijan's various strategic charms, both suitors have cancelled short-term visas for Azerbaijani visitors, but Azerbaijan is taking its time to reciprocate, trying to mete out its graces sparingly and equitably to the two fellow Muslim countries.
Baku, though, is increasingly pressured by both sides to make a decision between its attraction for longtime ally and cultural soul mate Turkey and its complicated relationship with Iran.
Azerbaijan even had to offer explanations today after the Turkish daily Today’s Zaman, citing senior Azerbaijani presidential aide Ali Hasanov, reported that pressure from Iran is preventing Baku from proceeding with a visa-cancellation deal with Ankara.
The story claimed that Iran threatened to block Azerbaijan’s access to its exclave of Nakhchivan should Baku cancel its visa requirement for Turkey.
Hasanov, though, protested that “I only meant to say that canceling the visa regime with Turkey can only happen in sync with canceling the visa regime with Iran,” 1news.az reported.
“At this stage, the simultaneous cancellation of visa regimes with either country brings us to issues related to national security, immigration and other issues that we are not ready to deal with right now,” he elaborated.
Sound familiar? Quite plainly, Baku is just not ready to commit.
Is the demilitarization of the Caspian Sea still a viable possibility? Representatives of the five Caspian littoral states (Azerbaijan, Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Iran) just finished meeting in Baku, and their statements to the press afterwards suggested that all was peace and harmony on the sea. Via Contact.az:
The question of military activity is an important element of the legal status of the Caspian Sea, said [Azerbaijan's] Deputy Foreign Minister Khalaf Khalafov. "The work in this direction is going on. There are different approaches. There is an idea of demilitarization. There is an idea of regulating the activity of armed forces. Of course, we have not come yet to a common opinion," Khalafov said on April 27.
The Russian representative at the talks, Alexander Golovin, agreed:
[Golovin] stressed that "all the littoral states agree that the Caspian should be a sea of peace and friendship." "And accordingly, none of the littoral states is going to start up the arms race, or compete in the military sphere with each other," Golovin said. This is not the field of activity on which the littoral states must spend their efforts, he said.
So they say. But actions speak louder than words, and here are a few of the recent developments on the sea:
Turkish diplomats have sometimes referred to themselves as the region's "firemen," hustling around the region putting out brushfires before they become full-on conflagrations. A lot of this has been done through various mediation efforts (not all successful) that Ankara has been initiating in various places.
The newest Turkish mediation effort appears to be between neighbors Azerbaijan and Iran, who don't see eye-to-eye on a host of issues. The Hurriyet Daily News has more on an upcoming meeting of the three countries' foreign ministers Turkey is convening in northern Iran.
While Turkey's relations with Iran have been rapidly improving in recent years, it might be worth nothing that Turkish-Azeri relations have been less than smooth since Ankara initiated its now frozen rapprochement with Armenia in 2009.
The U.S. can maintain its global primacy if it (among other things) plays Russia off China, India, Iran and Turkey off Russia and Turkey off Iran. That's the analysis of globe-spinner extraordinaire Robert Kaplan, along with his brother Stephen (apparently recently retired as a top CIA official).
The essay, America Primed, is in the new edition of The National Interest and doesn't deal too explicitly with the Caucasus or Central Asia. But it's all about how the U.S. (assisted by the "Anglosphere," other English-speaking countries like Canada, the U.K. and Australia) can maintain dominance on the Eurasian continent. And that requires American leadership to make sure that no other country -- in particular China, Russia or Iran -- gets too powerful. What does that entail, specifically?
For one, playing India off Russia (and "punishing" Pakistan):
Out of national pride, and because of its own tense relationships with China and Pakistan, India needs to remain officially nonaligned. But that will not stop New Delhi from accepting more help from the United States, especially as India now wants to wean itself off Russian arms and replace them with better quality American equipment. Washington should require no quid pro quo from India to make it even more powerful in the region; this is about more than public pronouncements and diplomatic atmospherics, this is about quietly delivering arms, transferring technology and supplying intelligence data to one nation to punish another for taking billions of American dollars without providing the crucial help we require in return.
Also, encouraging Turkey, even with an apparently growing Islamist orientation, to counterbalance Iran:
Late in 2007 Uzbekistan customs officials intercepted a rail car carrying some radioactive material, most likely either cesium or uranium, en route from Kyrgyzstan to Iran. That bit of tantalizing information comes courtesy of WikiLeaks, which has released several U.S. State Department cables about the incident. Unfortunately, the cables don't shed light on the most important questions: who was sending it, who was receiving it, and what were they going to do with it
The seizure was made on November 28, 2007, according to the initial report:
1.(S/NF) Post wishes to alert the Department and Washington agencies per reftel that it has received a report indicating a potential incident of illicit trafficking in nuclear and/or radiological materials. This report came to post's attention via xxxxxxxxxxxx (please protect) reporting informally, unofficially to Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) rep....
¶2. (S/NF) Details of the incident follow:
A) (S/NF) Current location of material: The rail car in question has been quarantined in the vicinity of xxxxxxxxxxxx on the Uzbekistan-Kazakhstan border by the Ministry of Emergency Situations.
B) (S/NF) Transport status of material: (e.g. stationary or in transit, who is responsible for it, how secure is it, what does the host government plan to do with it) The Ministry of Emergency Situations has quarantined the rail car and the Institute of Nuclear Physics was making preparations as of December 3 to open the rail car for further investigation....
E) (S/NF) Intended destination of material: (port or border crossing and country) Iran was the point of destination....
News from Iran about its new military technology should always be taken with a large grain of salt, but nevertheless, this is interesting:
A senior Iranian Navy commander announced on Sunday that the country plans to launch a new home-made destroyer in the Caspian Sea which will enjoy more advanced naval equipment compared with Iran's first home-made destroyer Jamaran....
"The destroyer will be used in one of the combat units of the Islamic Republic of Iran's Navy in the Caspian Sea and will start its naval mission and operation in the lake in the near future," the commander announced.
(via Fars News Agency)
One confusing detail: the story goes on to say that the Jamaran will be deployed in the Persian Gulf and the new (and apparently unnamed) destroyer in the Caspian. But a few months ago Iran announced it was deploying a new destroyer in the Caspian; the logical conclusion was that that destroyer was a Jamaran-class vessel. But this new story doesn't mention that previous launch in the Caspian. Nor does it mention an announcement from August about new missile boats being sent to the Caspian, as well.
But whatever the case, at least rhetorically Iran is trying to assert its sovereignty in the Caspian. And coming just a week after the conclusion of the Caspian littoral summit, where regional leaders including Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad vowed to cooperate on security matters in the sea, this seems to be sending the opposite message.
