An Azerbaijani-Iranian War Will Lead to a Regional Conflagration

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

53% : Last month, after describing Azerbaijan as a "Zionist entity," Iran held its largest military exercises in thirty years on the Azerbaijani border.
53% : The Azerbaijani minority in Iran is an important source of human intelligence for Israel.
51% : In response, and representing the third military exercise in only two months, Turkey and Azerbaijan held the Steadfast Brotherhood military exercise in early October in Nakhichevan, an Azerbaijani enclave squeezed between Armenia and Iran.
48% : Iran faces two additional obstacles in promoting its Islamic revolution to Azerbaijan: the absence of anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism in Azerbaijan.
47% : The United States should join Israel and support the Turkish-Azerbaijani-Pakistani axis as a counterweight to Iran and Russia in the South Caucasus and greater Middle East.
47% : The Kremlin could no longer pretend to be neutral if its regional allies -- Iran and Armenia -- were involved in military operations.
46% : Iran is concerned that Azerbaijan will become a conduit for growing Turkish influence in Central Asia, where four out of five nations are Turkic speaking.
45% : As a member of Iran's Azerbaijani minority wrote anonymously to Gunaz TV, a channel that caters to the Azerbaijani population in Iran, "whoever is against the Iranian regime is our friend."
45% : Tehran has specific objectives related to its national security and territorial integrity and, therefore, will never allow the strengthening of independent Azerbaijan."
42% : In competition is another geopolitical group consisting of Russia, Armenia, and Iran.
41% : Iran, meanwhile, has attempted -- but failed -- to spread the Shiite revolution to Azerbaijan.
41% : In 2021, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank which had close ties to the Trump administration, and Israel's Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies both called for the "dismantling" of Iran (i.e., backing Azerbaijani and other minority separatism within the country).
39% : A military conflict between Iran and Azerbaijan would lead to a regional conflagration.
39% : regional tensions and the threat of an Azerbaijani-Iranian war came after Iran's recently appointed president, Ebrahim Raisi, inherited an established regional geopolitical order that is in opposition to Iran.
39% : As an American diplomatic cable reported, Iran never condemned the Christian country's (Armenia) occupation of its Shiite neighbor's (Azerbaijan) territory.
39% : As an American diplomatic cable explained, "it should be understood that for a number of reasons Iran may not be objectively interested in strengthening Azerbaijan.
38% : Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said that Iran "will not tolerate the presence of the Zionist entity (Israel) near its borders and will take what security measures it deems necessary."
38% : Azerbaijan inherited and has maintained a secular culture from its seven decades in the Soviet Union; Iran is unwilling to accept that Azerbaijan's secular identity is grounded in Turkic culture and is frustrated and bitter at Turkey's growing influence inside its neighbor's borders.
35% : Iran is escalating its military rhetoric against Azerbaijan as Tehran holds its largest military exercises in three decades on its border with Azerbaijan.
35% : Former U.S. ambassador to Azerbaijan Matthew Bryza stated that "While Iran is not trying to be 'hostile,' it is still showing the three countries its uneasiness over their [earlier] joint drill."
31% : While Iran and Azerbaijan are both majority Shiite countries, they have an important difference:
30% : Iran's saber-rattling toward Azerbaijan is not new; in 2007, Aliyev said that Iran was a "significant problem" and resembled a "cornered, wild animal."
29% : Aliyev also declared that "there is no effective international mechanism to counter the threat posed by Iran."

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