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from stratfor.com
Summary
Iran is making a conscious effort to bolster its military and political standing in the Caspian Sea region, and in Azerbaijan in particular. This is an obvious effort not only to carve out strategic space in the Caspian before Washington can seize it, but also to ward off a potential U.S. invasion from Azerbaijan. This is the beginning of what probably will be intensifying competition for control in the Caspian.
Analysis
On May 16, Iranian media announced that Iranian Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani and Azerbaijani Defense Minister Safar Abiyev signed a nonaggression pact in which the two agreed not to allow a third party to use their territories for an attack against the other. Tehran's goal in this pact is obvious — get Baku to prohibit the United States from using Azerbaijani territory for a potential attack against Iran.
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's surprise and highly secret April 12 visit to Baku to discuss military cooperation between the two countries undoubtedly flummoxed Tehran. The visit and its secretive nature might have been news to Iran, but Washington's increasing influence in Azerbaijan — and the Caspian Sea region in general — is not. The United States has several strategic objectives in mind in becoming the pre-eminent power player in the region, and no Caspian country stands to lose more from the achievement of those objectives than Iran.
In recent months, Iran has tried to buy Azerbaijan's loyalty by offering political support for Baku's claims against Armenia over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. That political support was apparently not enough to stop Baku from agreeing to offer Washington access to military bases on Azerbaijani soil. Iran then had to sweeten the deal to get what it wanted.
Though the full details of the defense cooperation agreement the two countries signed have not been made public, it is very possible that Iran, in return for the nonaggression pact, offered Azerbaijan military hardware or aid that could come in handy in renewed conflict with Armenia. Such a move would damage relations with Armenia, but Iran is an important economic partner for an Armenia blockaded by both Azerbaijan and Turkey, so Armenia is in no position to be choosy about its partners. Because Baku knows Washington will be displeased by the agreement, only a concession on a matter of fundamental Azerbaijani national interest could have been sufficient for Baku.
The struggle between Washington and Tehran for influence over Baku has been going on in earnest for several months. For Washington, Azerbaijan is prime real estate, given its oil and gas resources, its potential to serve as a transit country for oil and gas moving west from Central Asia and its potential to allow Washington to project military and political influence both into Central Asia and south toward the Middle East. Azerbaijan's sharing a sizeable border with Iran makes it even more tempting to Washington as the United States wrangles with Tehran over the latter's nuclear program.
All of these goals run directly counter to Tehran's interests and create a zero-sum game for Iran. Economically, if the United States can pull Caspian and Central Asian energy reserves west through Azerbaijan, Iran will have competition for Western markets for its own resources. Washington also will attempt to block any Iranian effort to create westward routes for its energy reserves to freeze it out of a lucrative market. Furthermore, if Washington can offer European consumers Central Asian and Azerbaijani oil and gas as an alternative to Iranian energy, it will be that much easier to convince the Europeans that they do not need to buy energy supplies from Iran.
Militarily, the picture is more serious for Iran. Stratfor previously discussed Washington's goals of establishing "lily pad" bases in Azerbaijan that would give it the ability to project power east and south. Those bases, however, could easily become staging grounds for a U.S. invasion of Iran. Tehran is well aware of this, which explains the nonaggression pact with Baku.
Iran is not pursuing political efforts only to expand its influence in the Caspian and secure its northern flank. On May 10, Iran's Defense Minister announced that Iran has started to domestically produce submarines for the first time. The minisub known as the Ghadir, which will be designed to transport troops and equipped to fire rockets and torpedoes of undisclosed calibers, will be built on the Persian Gulf coast. In the media, foreign military attaches have questioned the ballistic capabilities of the subs but have said they are well-engineered and would serve well in a patrolling capacity.
Given the shallow waters of the Persian Gulf and all but the southern portion of the Caspian Sea, such subs would be of the most immediate use — and the most affordable — for Tehran. Transporting submarines from the Gulf coast to the Caspian would require some effort, but it can be done easily enough, and the Iranians intend to do it.
Tehran announced another naval development at the end of 2004 when it claimed to have begun production of a stealth torpedo that can be launched from helicopters, ships or submarines. Stratfor doubts the claim of the torpedo's stealth capabilities, given the Iranians' difficulties in domestically producing more basic weapons systems, but any kind of upgraded torpedo could be directed against any U.S. naval forces if a conflict should arise.
For Iran, establishing a naval presence in the Caspian before the United States is able to build a real military presence there is a strategic priority. With U.S. forces training Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan's coast guards and actively looking to expand naval cooperation with both countries in the Caspian, while Russia's influence throughout the former Soviet Union weakens, Iran can see the U.S. noose beginning to tighten. Its hope, then, is to get ahead of the game.
Though Iran seems to be making progress in the Caspian, its current influence is far from secure. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev's government lives in fear of Washington, as it is convinced the United States could bring about a velvet revolution — already named the Violet Revolution in Azerbaijan — in parliamentary elections slated for November 2005. Washington has presented Aliyev with the choice of taking a more pro-U.S. line and opening the political system to competition, or confronting a U.S.-backed opposition such as those that succeeded in Georgia and Ukraine.
If Washington pressures Aliyev sufficiently on Iran as November approaches, Baku could reconsider the nonaggression pact, if only in secret, while the regime seeks to assure its position. Also, if a new pro-Western government should take power in Azerbaijan, it could potentially decide not to recognize defense agreements signed by a former government.
The game being played in the Caspian between the United States and Iran is only set to expand. With Washington working to gain influence over Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan along with Azerbaijan, Iran is left to work with Russia. As it turns out, Moscow and Tehran have developed a sudden urge to work together in the Caspian now that both countries see their interests threatened by Washington. On May 3, Iran said it strongly supports the idea of creating a joint rapid reaction force for the Caspian with Russia.
This represents the first time Tehran has shown any interest in cooperating with Moscow on any initiative in the Caspian, as the two traditionally have been the main competitors for influence there. The United States' push into the region is having a polarizing effect, and every country is choosing sides now. This makes it likely that increasing political and military competition in the Caspian has only just begun.
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