Azerbaijan & The Iranian Nuclear Showdown

I know it sounds crazy, but this is not the first time such an idea has been mentioned. The first time I heard of such an idea was in 2003 in an analysis on Eurasianet. However, it was largely skeptical at the time.

At present, there is little tangible evidence to support the notion that Iranian Azeris are prepared to confront the government in Tehran. Iranian Azeris are widely known to be well-integrated into Iranian society and the state. Nevertheless, a new book by Brenda Shaffer, Harvard University’s Director of Caspian Studies, has reportedly captivated the attention of “regime change” advocates in Washington. In her book, “Borders and Brethren: Iran and the Challenge of Azerbaijani Identity,” Shaffer challenges the widely held view in contemporary Iranian scholarship that a broad Iranian identity supersedes ethnic identities.

Shaffer describes a cultural reawakening among Iranian Azeris, calls Iran’s national and ethnic-minority policy unjust and suggests that Iranian support for Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute stems from a fear of the Republic of Azerbaijan becoming strong and, as she said in a recent London lecture, emerging as “a source of attraction to [Iran’s] own Azerbaijanis.”

Washington policy-makers have also expressed an interest in the views of Iranian Azeri cultural rights activist and political dissident Mahmudali Chehregani, a former Tabriz University Professor who was jailed briefly three years ago in Iran, and who currently resides in the United States.

On April 9, he told an audience of policy-makers, diplomats, journalists and students at the Johns Hopkins University Central Asia-Caucasus Institute that a strong sense of Azerbaijani nationalism is growing in Iran, predicting the possibility of Azeri-led unrest unless the demands of this “movement” were met. He predicted “radical changes” in Iran within three to five years, hinting that those changes could emanate from unrest among Iran’s large Azeri population.

[...]

Chehregani backers in Turkey and in the Republic of Azerbaijan have hinted and said publicly that Iran’s Azeri community should unite with Azerbaijan, a view with virtually no support among Iranian Azeris, most on-the-ground observers agree.

Chehregani publicly disassociated himself with the unification idea in his Central Asia-Caucasus Institute Speech, instead arguing for more cultural rights for Azeris, and a future Iranian government with “a federal structure resembling the United States, where Azeris can have their own flag and parliament.”

[...]

While Iranian Azeris may seek greater cultural rights, few Iranian Azeris display separatist tendencies, or go as far as Chehregani does in predicting ethnic-inspired unrest. Extensive reporting by this author in the three major Azerbaijani provinces of Iran, as well as among Iranian Azeris in Tehran, found that irredentist or unificationist sentiment was not widely held among Iranian Azeris. Few people framed their genuine political, social and economic frustration – feelings that are shared by the majority of Iranians – within an ethnic context.

[...]

The overwhelming majority of Iranian Azeris has displayed little interest in ethnic-inspired instability and virtually no interest in secession or unification with the Republic of Azerbaijan. Many view the Republic of Azerbaijan as economically stagnant and politically corrupt. As one Tabriz merchant joked: “We already virtually control Iran. Why would we want to become [Azerbaijani President Heidar] Aliyev’s slave?”

http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/culture/articles/eav041503.shtml