Saud falsely blame Iran for Yemen

Western new outlets assert that Yemen is a proxy war for Iran's struggle against Saudi Arabia.  That is a position the Saudi have assiduously promoted as a justification fora its genocide in Yemen.  See Time, The Arabian country has become the scene of the Middle East's second proxy war; DW, Power struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran hampers peace process; the egregious Saudi propaganda piece in Arab News, Iranian cruelty against Yemen civilians rapped.

Not so, according to ForeignAffairs Magazine, a a scholarly, careful, and generally neoconic publication that one would expect to support the Saudi.  A perceptive, historically accurate account of Yemen.

From foreignPolicy Magazine:

SNAPSHOT April 19, 2015  

Iran's Game in Yemen

Why Tehran Isn't to Blame for the Civil War

By Mohsen Milani

In the past four years, Saudi Arabia has used its military to intervene in both Bahrain and Yemen. Its rationale in both cases: To protect those Arab countries from “Persian subversion.” In its discussions of foreign policy, Riyadh portrays Iran as a hegemonic power whose nefarious support of its Shia Houthi proxy precipitated a civil war in Yemen—a struggle the Saudi Ambassador to the United States, Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir, describes as being “between good and evil.”  

But Saudi Arabia is grossly exaggerating Iran’s power in Yemen to justify its own expansionist ambitions. Iran is not the cause of the civil war, nor are the Houthis its proxy. Chaos, not Iran, controls Yemen. With no vital economic or strategic interests in Yemen, Iran has, for the last few years, only opportunistically supported the Houthis to create a political sphere of influence. It did so through soft power and with minimal investment because the Houthis have been more interested in Iran than Iran has been in them. Of course, Iran, like the international community, is deeply concerned about the security of the Bab el-Mandeb strait in Yemen through which millions of dollars worth of oil flows, but it will not get militarily engaged in the lingering civil war, since Tehran correctly believes there is no military solution to the conflict. Now, no Saudi aerial bombardment of Yemen, or even boots on the ground, will defeat the Houthis or stop the expansion of Iran’s influence in Yemen. 

 •  •  •

In the first war, Hussein was killed by Yemeni government forces, but the movement he led thrived as his brother, Abdulamlik al-Houthi, took the helm. In 2009, the clashes between the government and the Houthis reached a climax when the Saudi Air Force joined the Yemeni government. The joint operation was unsuccessful and the Houthis temporarily captured two villages inside Saudi territory. At that time, the Saudis reportedly began to depopulate some border areas insides the kingdom’s territory where the local population had shown some sympathy toward the Zaydis.    

After that, the war dragged on. The Houthis proposed inviting Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq’s most popular Shia leader known for his moderation, to mediate between the warring parties. But the appeal landed on deaf ears. A Saudi cleric, Mohammad Al-Arifi, dismissed Sistani as “an infidel.” Meanwhile, the Houthis became ideologically ever closer to Tehran

To the Houthis, the Arab Spring’s arrival in Yemen in early 2011 was a gift. When the people took to the streets in support of democracy, the previously undemocratic Houthis joined them. The growing protest movement ended Saleh’s 37-year rule and his Vice-President, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, won in an uncontested presidential race. The rule of the Saudi-supported Hadi was short-lived, however. Saleh and his vast network within the armed forces and intelligence agencies joined the Houthis to overthrow Hadi,[Not mentioned is that Saleh was allowed, by the Saudi, the GCC, an the US, to leave Yemen with $60bm, which no doubt is being used to fund the ciil war.] who escaped to Saudi Arabia. Today, the Houthis and their partners control Sanaa and most of Yemen. The Houthis, who have committed acts of terror and intimidation, could not have made rapid advances without a tactic alliance with Saleh, their old nemesis. Saudi Arabia has zeroed in on the Houthis as if they alone are responsible for the mess.

REGIONAL RIVALS

The civil war in Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country, is a reflection of a fierce struggle between diverse sects and tribes, each with its own questionable past allegiances and activities. It would be disingenuous to fully blame Iran and portray Saudi Arabia as a benevolent power.

The nature and extent of Iranian involvement has been exaggerated and sometimes deliberately distorted. For example, according to a WikiLeaks document, when Saleh was briefed that year about an American drone crashing on Yemeni soil, he publicly insisted that the drone was Iranian and that it was collecting intelligence. Then in 2009, Yemen seized a small boat in its territorial waters and claimed that it contained Iranian weapons and cash destined to reach the Houthis. Iran denied the charges. 

In a secret cable to Washington, U.S. Ambassador Stephen Seche wrote that “most local political analysts report that the Houthis obtained their weapons from the Yemeni black market.” He quoted a high-ranking Yemeni official saying that the Houthis “easily obtain weapons from inside Yemen, either from battlefield captures or by buying them from corrupt military commanders and soldiers....The military covers up its failures by saying the weapons come from Iran.”

Likewise, claims in 2015 that “there are 5,000 Iranian, Hezbollah, and Shi’a militia from Iraq in Yemen,” as an unidentified official from the Gulf Cooperation Council put it, are unsubstantiated. For its part, the United States admits as much. In an April statement, Jen Psaki, spokesperson for the State Department, stated that “The U.S. is concerned about Iran’s relations with the Houthis and that the U.S. has evidence of all kinds of support to Houthis, but, we have no evidence that Iran controls the actions of Houthis.”

To be sure, despite the lack of conclusive evidence, it would not be far-fetched to conclude that the hardliners in Iran may have provided limited military and financial support to the Houthis, starting in 2009. Even so, these weapons have not decisively altered the balance of forces in the civil war.

Unquestionably, there are remarkable similarities in the political and ideological orientation of the Houthis and the Islamic Republic. Nor is there any doubt that Iran seeks to expand its influence in Yemen. There are reports that Iranian and Iraqi Shia seminaries have trained Zaydi clerics. In the past few months, a few Houthi delegations traveled to Tehran and signed various economic agreements with Iran. Since February 2015, there have been daily direct flights from Tehran to Sanaa. Iran has also pledged to expand the Al Hudaydah Port, which is close to the Straight of Bab-el-Mandeb that connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden; to export oil to Yemen for a year, although the terms of the deal are not known; to build a new electrical power plant; and to send experts on electricity and transportation to Yemen. But they’ve been doing that for a while. In January 2015, Hadi, who now calls the Houthis “stooges of Iran,” also asked for greater cooperation from Iran to resolve regional issues and invited Iranian companies to invest in Yemen.

COSTLY CONFLICT

Because of the conflict’s complicated nature, Saudi Arabia’s military intervention is a strategic blunder that will exacerbate the war, allow terrorists in the area to expand their operations, and create a humanitarian disaster. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has already gained some territory in Yemen and is revitalized, which will complicate U.S. counterterrorism operations in the region. Putting boots on the ground, as Saudi Arabia and a few Arab countries have threatened to do, will create a quagmire from which they will not be able to easily escape.

A man looks at damage in his house caused by an air strike that hit a nearby army weapons depot in Sanaa, April 18, 2015.

KHALED ABDULLAH / REUTERS 

It is not entirely clear why the Saudis decided to intervene in Yemen. Perhaps, the Kingdom hoped to reverse evolving strategic changes in the region that it deems antithetical to its interests. The Kingdom lost its most powerful Sunni ally in Saddam Hussein in Iraq in 2003.  Today, Baghdad is controlled by the Shias. In Bahrain, the large Shia majority remains restive and is challenging the Saudi-backed, Sunni-controlled government there. Despite Saudi Arabia’s desire to see Assad go, he remains in power. In Lebanon, Hezbollah has become a force to be reckoned with. Saudi Arabia sees Iran’s fingerprints behind these huge changes and is, justifiably, concerned about their impact on its own considerable Shia population. Already, they have tipped the balance of power in the strategic competition between Iran and Saudi Arabia in Iran’s favor. So the Saudis might have decided to act preemptively in Yemen to prevent Iran from consolidating its presence in that country. Another plausible explanation is that the Saudis panicked about the possibility of a nuclear agreement with Iran and a subsequent U.S. rapprochement with Tehran. Perhaps the Kingdom hopes to turn its anti-Houthi coalition into an anti-Iran coalition.  [Not mentioned is the possibility, often mentioned, that the genocide in Yemen is the new Saud kins's attempt o persuade its own clergy that he can be relied on to protect Wahhabism.]

It isn’t too late to turn things around. The war in Yemen will require a ceasefire followed by negotiations among all major Yemeni parties who come together, through popular elections, to form a broad-based government, which is very likely to include the Houthis. The problem is that the Saudis might reject this partly because they do not wish to see an independent and representative government that has the slightest tendency toward  populism or elections. But facts on the ground will compel the Saudis to readjust their policy.

As civilian causalities increase in Yemen, the United States will face a difficult choice. On one hand, Washington appears to know that aerial bombardment, or sending troops, will not result in the kind of changes the Saudis are seeking in Yemen. On the other hand, Washington’s main preoccupation in Yemen is its counterterrorism operations against al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which has benefited enormously from Saudi military operations. At the same time, the Houthis have proven to be the most ferocious and effective enemy of the terrorist group and have shown willingness to cooperate with the United States in its counterterrorism operations.  

As civilian causalities increase in Yemen, the United States will face a difficult choice. On one hand, Washington appears to know that aerial bombardment, or sending troops, will not result in the kind of changes the Saudis are seeking in Yemen. On the other hand, Washington’s main preoccupation in Yemen is its counterterrorism operations against al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which has benefited enormously from Saudi military operations. At the same time, the Houthis have proven to be the most ferocious and effective enemy of the terrorist group and have shown willingness to cooperate with the United States in its counterterrorism operations. 

As for Iran, it must continue to refrain from getting militarily entangled in Yemen, where it has no national interests. Nor should Tehran provide weapons to the Houthis. Iran has already overextended itself in the region. It is high time for the country to moderate its regional policies in anticipation of the signing of a final nuclear agreement with the six global powers, which will change the strategic landscape of the Middle East. Iran is a major regional power and must now act responsibly to help stabilize the region. Yemen would be a good place to start. 

∼∼∼∼∼∼∼∼∼∼

A few of the google imagoes of 

Saudi-led destruction 

in Yemen 

in the past week:

 Humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen  UN A man walks on the rubble of a of a house destroyed by Saudi led airstrikes that killed a TV director, his wife, and three children in Sanaa, Yemen, on Wednesday, Feb. 10, 2016 AP Photo Hani Mohammed

Amidst the chaos of the conflict, women in Yemen have increased vulnerability to gender based violence

ASSOCIATED PRESS A young boy takes a photo of houses damaged in Saudi-led airstrikes A hospital run by Doctors Without Borders was also hit in the attack.

The U.S. based Blackwater Group has reportedly abandoned the Ta'iz front in western Yemen after suffering heavy casualties over the last two months while

Yemen, Forgotten War, Forgotten War Crimes US Cluster Munitions Used against Civilians

China's dwindling control of North Korea; UN lack of control of China

Do you have better analysis of North Korea and its nuclear ambitions?  Of likely Chinese responses?

Would you like for the US to bomb North Korea? Do you think bombing would be effective?  If you do, wold you take responsibility for anticipated responses?  Have you an estimate of what those responses would be?

The New York Times

SIA PACIFIC | NEWS ANALYSIS

China Struggles for Balance in Response to North Korea’s Boldness

By JANE PERLEZ and CHOE SANG-HUNFEB. 7, 2016

Photo

The Chinese diplomat Wu Dawei, center, with Pak Song Il, right, of the North Korean Foreign Ministry, after arriving at Pyongyang Airport last week. 

BEIJING — When the veteran Chinese diplomat Wu Dawei left for North Korea last week, he probably knew he had been dispatched on mission impossible: to persuade the country’s young leader, Kim Jong-un, to climb down from his threat to launch a rocket as part of his quest to develop ballistic missile technologies.

Not only did Mr. Kim ignore China’s entreaties, sending Mr. Wu home empty-handed. He did so emphatically, ordering the launch a day earlier than expected so that it fell on one of China’s most important holidays, the eve of the Lunar New Year.

It is unclear how long President Xi Jinping of China will tolerate what some analysts here are calling the humiliation of his country at the hands of a capricious Mr. Kim. But there are no immediate signs that Beijing will radically change course and turn away from its traditional ally.Continue reading the main storyRELATED 

It’s a bad result, it’s a humiliation,” said Cheng Xiaohe, an associate professor of international relations at Renmin University. “I think Kim Jong-un made many mistakes, and this is one of his major mistakes.” Even so, he added, “It’s hard to say what different approach China will take.”

North Korea said Sunday that the rocket had successfully put a satellite into orbit.South Korea’s National Intelligence Service said the launch indicated that North Korea had made some technological advances toward its assumed goal of pursuing an intercontinental ballistic missile. The satellite launched Sunday weighed 440 pounds, twice as heavy as a satellite launched in 2012, according to lawmakers who attended a closed briefing by the spy agency on Sunday.

The United Nations Security Council, at an emergency meeting Sunday requested by the United States andJapan, issued a statement signaling its intention to stiffen penalties against North Korea, but without saying how or when. A draft Security Council resolution is under negotiation, diplomats said. The key is what China will allow in terms of tightening or broadening sanctions.

Hours after the launch, the Chinese Foreign Ministry expressed “regret” and counseled calm and cautious action, a tone that drew immediate ridicule from users of the Chinese social media site, Weibo.

In contrast to calls from South Korea, Japan and the United States on Sunday for tougher sanctions against North Korea, China said early dialogue — meaning the resumption of talks among major powers and North Korea — was its preferred way to rein in Mr. Kim. Those negotiations, led by China and known as the six-party talks, fell apart in 2009 after North Korea walked out.

In response to the Foreign Ministry’s statement, one person on Weibo said: “I feel ‘regret’ for the Foreign Ministry.”

Another user said: “I have been racking my head but I simply can’t figure out why we have to offend everybody in the world to defend a rogue regime.”

Popular sentiment in China, where Mr. Kim has been maligned online as overweight, bumptious and inexperienced, appears to run against the government’s public patience with the North Korean leader. 

In a poll on Weibo conducted Friday and Saturday, two-thirds of the 8,000 respondents said they supported a strike by the United States to destroy North Korea’s nuclear weaponsprogram. Eighteen percent of those interviewed said they were against such a strike, and 16 percent said they were neutral.

In a telling signal of official disapproval of the results, Chinese censors had deleted the poll by Sunday afternoon.

Continue reading the main story

Despite its frustration with Mr. Kim and frosty personal relations — Mr. Xi has refused to meet with Mr. Kim — China will probably continue to put up with his behavior, said Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University.

China is afraid of turning its recalcitrant ally into a worrisome enemy, he said.

The government has opposed severe sanctions aimed at curtailing the amount of oil that China exports to North Korea and at stopping imports of mineral resources. So far, China has supported only sanctions that limit the transfer or sale of military equipment or other items that would help North Korea’s weapons program.

“China thinks more severe sanctions will reduce China’s influence in North Korea,” Mr. Shi said.

Most important, China was afraid that hammering North Korea with heavy sanctions would turn it into a hostile country that could “take action” against Beijing, Mr. Shi said.

Mr. Xi has made the calculation that Mr. Kim, the third generation of the Kim family to rule North Korea, would be an enduring figure, and he sent Liu Yunshan, a member of the powerful Standing Committee of the Communist Party, to a military parade in Pyongyang last October to make a kind of rapprochement, Mr. Shi said.

China even appeared to be willing to risk its budding relationship with South Korea, an ally of the United States, by putting up with North Korea’s bad behavior.

The rocket launch on Sunday, which came after a fourth nuclear test by the North Koreans in early January, showed that China’s goal of maintaining good relationships with both North Korea and South Korea was an extremely difficult balancing act, Mr. Cheng said.

Mr. Xi has gone out of his way to court the South Korean president, Park Geun-hye, by stressing the strong economic relationship between the two countries. China is South Korea’s biggest trading partner, and Ms. Park raised eyebrows among Washington officials last September by turning up at a huge military parade on Tiananmen Square in Beijing that was boycotted by Western leaders.

Photo

Secretary of State John Kerry, left, and President Xi Jinping of China during their meeting in Beijing in January. 

CreditIn a move sure to displease China, South Korea’s Defense Department said hours after the launch Sunday that it would start formal discussions with the United States about the deployment of a missile defense system known as Thaad, for Terminal High Altitude Area Defense.

China has vigorously opposed the deployment of the system, arguing that it would be used by the United States to interfere with China’s defenses and as a tool to contain China.

The North Korean rocket launch “is aimed at advancing its nuclear weaponsand their delivery missiles,” Ms. Park said. “North Korea poses a grave challenge to the peace of Northeast Asia and the rest of the world by rejecting dialogue and persisting in advancing its missiles for the sake of regime survival.” 

Maj. Gen. Kim Yong-hyun, the head of operations at the South Korean military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, also said that Seoul and Washington had agreed that their annual joint springtime military exercises, code-named Key Resolve and Foal Eagle, would be the largest ever this year.

He said that South Korea would deploy more propaganda loudspeakers along the border with North Korea and operate them for longer hours. South Korea switched on the long-dormant loudspeakers after the January nuclear test, and North Korea responded by sending balloons into the South to drop propaganda leaflets and trash.

In recent years, South Korea has aggressively courted closer ties with China, hoping it would help tame North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.

The mood shifted in South Korea, however, after the nuclear test in January. China, North Korea’s only major trading partner, rejected repeated South Korean and American demands that it force the North to give up its nuclear-missile program by squeezing oil and other shipments.

President Obama and Mr. Xi spoke by telephone last week about the need for unified action regarding sanctions at the United Nations, the White House said.

But the agreement between the two leaders in California in 2013, when cooperation on finding a solution to the North Korea dilemma was the high point of their meeting, appears to have evaporated.

When Secretary of State John Kerry held more than four hours of talks with the Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, last month in Beijing, there was little enthusiasm for more targeted sanctions by the Chinese, even though both sides knew that a rocket launch was likely to happen, American officials said.

“The general relationship between the United States and China is far from good, and I don’t think the U.S. has any real bargaining chips with China over North Korea,” Mr. Shi said. “The vital interest of the United States is to reduce the nuclear weapons, and the vital interest of China is to keep a minimum degree of stability and to keep North Korea a friend.”

Under various Security Council resolutions, North Korea is banned from rocket launches using ballistic missile technology. But it has touted its missiles and nuclear weapons as the “sacred sword” its people have long sought to deter American invasions. On Sunday, it called the satellite “a gift of most intense loyalty” for Mr. Kim.

Differing views on start of talks with Iran

From the Tehran Times:

Iran enters Istanbul talks with constructive approach

Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Saeed Jalili, arrived in Istanbul on Friday to resume negotiations with the 5+1 group (the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China, and Germany). 

[The iranian negotiator] held separate talks with Chinese Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs Ma Zhaoxu and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov in Istanbul on Friday.  

During his meeting with the Chinese official, Bagheri said that Iran will present new initiatives in the talks with the major powers and “has entered the talks with a constructive approach.”

Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili 

 and European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton

 From the Jerusalem Post:

LONDON - Iran is concealing the destination of its oil sales by disabling tracking systems aboard its tanker fleet, making it difficult to assess how much crude Tehran is exporting as it seeks to counter Western sanctions aimed at cutting its oil revenues.

Iranian oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz

From the Associated Press:

ISTANBUL (AP) — After years of failure, Iran and the six world powers may finally make some progress on nuclear negotiations when they meet again Saturday if each side shows willingness to offer concessions the other seeks.

But even if the two sides find enough common ground, they may have a tougher time in any potential second round. That's when the six powers will likely seek further commitments from Tehran to reduce fears that it could use its uranium enrichment program to make the fissile core of nuclear missiles.

Iran has proposed Baghdad as a possible venue for a second round and a European diplomat said Friday the six could agree to meet there in May if there were enough progress in Istanbul.

Istanbul

Bagdad, our legacy

From the Arab News:

By AP ISTANBUL: After years of failure, Iran and the six world powers may finally make some progress on nuclear negotiations when they meet again Saturday if each side shows willingness to offer concessions the other seeks

From the Moscow Times [If you can make your way through this article -- it talks about places and events that may be unfamiliar to you -- you will learn a lot about why War with Iran is a very bad idea, from Moscow's perspective.  Moscow's perspective is not to be weighed lightly:  Russia still has enough nuclear weapons to destroy all life on earth.]

Iran War Threat Rattles Nerves in Caucasus

12 April 2012

By Nikolaus von Twickel

When the world's major powers gather in Istanbul on Saturday for crucial talks with Tehran on its nuclear program, Moscow's negotiators will have extra motivation to avoid a war.

An Israeli attack on Iran would not only send shock waves throughout the Gulf region and the Islamic world, it would also have unpredictable consequences on the South Caucasus, long regarded by Moscow as Russia's own backyard.

You can see why Russia would be interested.

Some experts are warning that a war with Iran carries the risk of reigniting the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, an Azerbaijani breakaway province controlled by Armenian separatists, and even precipitate a war between Russia and Georgia.

While those voices are a clear minority, few dispute that the region, awash with unresolved ethno-territorial conflicts, remains a powder keg. And the ratcheting up of tensions over Iran has already spilled over into Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia.

Earlier this week, Iran's Intelligence Ministry announced that it had arrested an Israeli-backed terrorist group whose headquarters lay in another country in the region.

The ministry did not name the country, but most observers pointed to Azerbaijan. The country has been described as a potential staging ground for an Israeli attack on Iran in a controversial article published by the U.S. magazine Foreign Policy last month, which claimed that Baku has granted Israel access to air bases on its territory.

Ali Hasanov, a senior official in Azerbaijan's presidential administration, denied the report, saying "foreign circles" were using the tensions over Iran to sow discord between both countries, Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported.

But Baku has seen a host of suspicious incidents recently. Earlier in March, police arrested 22 individuals whom they accused of being hired by Iran to stage terror attacks against Israeli and American targets.

Those arrests came on the heels of a report in January that Azerbaijan had uncovered an Iranian plot to kill the Israeli ambassador in Baku.

On Thursday, Azerbaijan's National Security Ministry said it had arrested a group of more than eight Azeri and Iranian citizens suspected of smuggling arms and drugs into the country.

 Yerevan, the capital of Armenia

Armenians take their football seriously, as does all the world, nearly

 

 

The ghost town of Agdam,

 its inhabitants driven away and

 its football team drafted into somebody's army.

  I don know enough about the conflict

 between Armenia and Azerbaijan 

to have a favorite. 

The still-honored football team of Aaagdam 

Deepening ties between Israel and predominantly Muslim Azerbaijan were highlighted in February when it emerged that Baku had bought arms worth $1.6 billion from the Jewish state. Analysts have said the deal has little to do with Iran and a lot with Baku's drive to equip its military for a potential war over Nagorno-Karabakh.

But a shadow of doubt was cast over this explanation by a media report last week that said the arms purchase included Gabriel anti-ship missiles, which Azerbaijan will use to protect its Caspian Sea coast from Iranian warships.

Tehran has also accused Baku of supporting Israeli-trained assassination squads targeting Iranian scientists, an accusation the Azeri government called slander.

And in February, Baku lawmakers called for changing the country's name to "North Azerbaijan," suggesting that the 16 million ethnic Azeris who live to the south in northern Iran are in need of liberation.

All this already makes for a lot of trouble in Iranian-Azeri neighborly ties, but by bringing in Armenia, Georgia, the United States and Russia, the picture becomes more dramatic.

Armenia, the region's staunchest Russian ally, is dependent on supply routes through Georgia and Iran because it has no ties with Azerbaijan and Turkey, its other two neighbors.

Earlier this month an Armenian analyst warned that Azerbaijan might launch an attack on Nagorno-Karabakh because it calculates that Iran would close its border with Armenia and Georgia would not let Russian aid pass through its territory.

"They understand that and can use that in case of a war over Iran, Sarkis Astaryan was quoted as saying by the Panarmenian.net site.

Meanwhile, Georgian officials warn of a new war with Russia, citing Moscow's announcement to hold large-scale military exercises in the North Caucasus in September.

Giga Bokeria, the secretary of Tbilisi's national security council, argued that the Caucasus 2012 exercises will include Russian troops stationed in Georgia's breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Speaking on Ekho Moskvy, he suggested that Moscow wants to achieve regime change in Georgia "finishing what it started in 2008," when Russia and Georgia fought a brief war over South Ossetia.

Military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer went further by arguing that the planned exercise is intended to counter any U.S. involvement in a war with Iran.

And Georgian opposition figures have suggested that a series of newly constructed provincial hospitals was financed by the United States and part of a covert campaign to ready the country for war.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin has said the fuss about the exercise was inappropriate.

But analysts told The Moscow Times that risks over Karabakh and in Georgia are so high, that no side would dare fire a shot, lest they set off a devastating war.

"A war over Iran would destabilize the whole South Caucasus," said Alexander Krylov, of the Institute of the World Economy and International Relations.

He argued that Russia's North Caucasus exercises do not mean that war is imminent. Rather, he said, they could "cool the heads of regional leaders and demonstrate stability."

Krylov also strongly argued against the possibility of an Azeri attack on Karabakh, saying it would jeopardize the country's precarious foreign policy position.

"Nobody would support them, not even Turkey," Krylov said. 


A former ambassador from a major western country to Azerbaijan, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, agreed that Azeri President Ilham Aliyev was a "clever man" who will do everything to maintain a foreign policy strategy of "quadrilateral balance between Russia, Iran, Turkey and the West."

"Right now they are very busy telling the Iranians that they pose no threat to Tehran's security," the ex-ambassador said.

He added that a war between Israel and Iran would only upset this balance.

Others said both Azerbaijan and Armenia would suffer considerably from a war over Iran because it would bring Baku's lucrative oil exports to a halt, while stopping Yerevan's crucial oil imports from Iran.

Ben Judah, a Caucasus expert at the European Council of Foreign Relations think tank said Israel currently imports a third of its oil from Azerbaijan, which flows via pipelines through Georgia to the Black Sea.

"War with Iran would leave Baku vulnerable," he said in a telephone interview from London

Particularly interesting to me, because "North-Azerbaijan", with the hyphen, as it is written in the Tehran Times, is a successful manufacturing province in northern Iran, and it and its millions of inhabitants would be blasted, twisted, decapitated, harmed by War with Iran; and Azerbaijan is friends with the US, or at least with our major oil companies.:

And in February, Baku [the Capital of Azerbaijan] lawmakers called for changing the country's name to "North Azerbaijan," suggesting that the 16 million ethnic Azeris who live to the south in northern Iran are in need of liberation.

Tabriz, the capital of the Iranian Province of Noth-Azeerbaijan

Countryside we might need to destroy, should we War with Iran

 Does the World need this?