Israel might hope to embolden its close Azerbaijani partner to push through the Trans-Caspian Pipeline with Turkmenistan once the war is over due to its new naval advantage over Iran, but Russia has always opposed this project too, and it might actively obstruct it and thus nullify these plans.
Andrew Korybko
Israel claimed to have destroyed several vessels from Iran’s Caspian Fleet last week despite them having no role in the Third Gulf War
nor ability to threaten Israel. Speculation has accordingly swirled
about what exactly Israel aimed to achieve by doing so other than
dealing as much damage to Iran as possible. The Maritime Executive
published an article arguing that “Israel Protects Azerbaijan With Strike on Iran’s Caspian Fleet”, which could also embolden Baku to disrupt the Russian-Iranian Caspian arms corridor.
While
these strikes shifted the balance of naval power in Azerbaijan’s favor,
President Ilham Aliyev might still play it cool in spite of how enraged
he is that Iran earlier bombed
his country’s exclave of Nakhchivan (which Iran insists was a false
flag) due to Iran’s continued missile capabilities. Azerbaijan’s economy
is dependent on energy exports whose infrastructure could easily be
damaged just like the Gulf Kingdoms’ have been, not to mention
destroyed, thus sparking an economic and possibly political crisis.
This
explains why Aliyev didn’t authorize any retaliation after the
Nakhchivan incident due to the reasonable fear that it could quickly
spiral out of control and greatly harm Azerbaijan. Likewise, his
country’s Turkish mutual defense ally might have signaled that it doesn’t want to get dragged into the Third Gulf War unless the US goes through with playing the Kurdish card, but Iranian and Iraqi Kurdish militias are still very reluctant to get involved due to the US’ history of hanging the Kurds out to dry.
Azerbaijan
therefore isn’t expected to exploit its advantage over Iran in the
Caspian, let alone invade Iran to take over what its nationalists
consider to be “South Azerbaijan”, unless Iran’s missile capability is
completely degraded and Aliyev doesn’t believe that his country’s energy
infrastructure would be at risk. What it’s more likely to do, however,
is wait until the dust settles and try to capitalize off of its
aforesaid naval advantage by attempting to push through the Trans-Caspian Pipeline with Turkmenistan.
If
Iran’s military capabilities are tremendously weakened after the war
ends, to say nothing if there are political changes that recalibrate its
foreign policy in a relatively more pro-Western direction (i.e. Venezuelan-like “regime tweaking” instead of regime change), then Azerbaijan might be emboldened. The “Trump Route for International Peace & Prosperity”
(TRIPP) could expand Turkish, US, and overall NATO influence to the
Caspian for deterring Iran from obstructing this project that it’s
always opposed.
Where Israel stands to gain by
engineering the regional naval balance in its close Azerbaijani
partner’s favor is obtaining gas from the eastern side of the Caspian
via a future pipeline across TRIPP to complement the oil (~40%
of its total imports) that it already receives from its western side.
Azerbaijan’s naval advantage, its alliance with Turkiye, and the
expansion of US influence along Iran’s entire northern periphery via
TRIPP might be sufficient for deterring Iran, but Russia might be a
totally different matter.
Therein lies the crux of
Israel’s post-war Caspian energy plans since Russia has also always
opposed the Trans-Caspian Pipeline, not to mention the expansion of
Western (whether Turkish, US, or overall NATO) influence along its
entire southern periphery in the South Caucasus, Caspian, and Central
Asia. If Russia can’t be incentivized
to allow this project to proceed, then it might actively obstruct it to
the point of sparking a crisis, thus nullifying the arguable reason why
Israel recently struck Iran’s Caspian fleet.