October, 2003

Israeli Strategy in the Caucasus

Dr Mohammed Refaat Emam

Most political analysts concur that the toppling of the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq has removed a real threat to Israel and that this facilitates the success of Israel's endeavours in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Now, the next major security concern for Israel in the region must surely be Iran.

The events and consequences of 11 September 2001 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have brought about a qualitative shift in Tel Aviv's vision concerning which areas are of strategic importance. The ideological and geopolitical vacuum left by the disintegration of the Soviet Union led Israeli strategic experts to consider linking the security of Israel to that geo-strategically significant region, which includes the Caucasus and Central Asia, despite its geographic distance from Israel.

Israel, aware of its need to prepare for future threats from non-Arab Islamic countries, including Iran and those in the Caucasus and Central Asia, has come to focus on building up its influence in these areas. Since the removal of Saddam Hussein from control in Iraq, the Islamic Republic of Iran, an oil-rich state with nuclear potential, has become the number one threat to Israeli security. Iran's neighbours, by extension, are also strategic threats to Israel, and hence the need for Tel Aviv to make friends in the region.
The vacuum left in the heart of Asia after the collapse of the Soviet Union was considered by many a geo-strategic opportunity too good to miss. In addition to the traditional heavyweights in the region - Russia, Britain, Turkey and Iran - a number of newcomers joined the game - India, China, Pakistan, the US and Israel. Despite the relatively recent interest of the US and Israel in the region, both have become major players.

Washington's initial interests in the region were to isolate Iran and contain Russia, both also strategic objectives for Israel. A US-Israeli strategy of accusation and threats against Iran soon emerged, targeting the country's security and sovereignty and creating political pressure to pave the way for its collapse, militarily if necessary. Tehran, in response, has criticised Israeli-Caucasian rapprochement, because it is a direct threat to its security and would allow a western military presence in the area, bringing danger right to its borders.

With the aim of increasing Iran's isolation, Washington supported an alliance between Israel and Turkey, which endorsed Israel's position in the region. With the absence of an active Iranian role in the Caucasus, the political leaderships of the region's countries gravitated towards Turkey and Israel. They realised that Israel represents a gateway to the West and hence welcomed its presence in the area.

This alliance has resulted in the growth of Turkish, Israeli and US activities in Azerbaijan - a country that views itself as European - in order to strengthen relations between Azerbaijan, Turkey, Israel and the US - a quadrate enemy to Iran. Baku, fast becoming a base for Iran's ideological foes, endorsed a policy that led to considerable tension with Tehran.

When we consider that the Caucasus and Central Asia region has become centre stage for clashes between the US and its allies and Russia, China and Iran, the significance becomes much clearer of the geo-strategic alliance of Azerbaijan, Israel and Turkey, under the sponsorship of Washington, which would serve US interests in the region.
Tel Aviv is relying on Baku in its battle against Tehran. The Azerbaijani leadership, which seeks to form a greater Azerbaijan by incorporating the 30% of Iranian citizens of Azerbaijani origin, would, if successful, create an ally of weight for Tel Aviv. If Baku and Tel Aviv are able to enhance Azerbaijani Iranians' sense of identification with their ancestral homeland, their loyalty would gradually shift towards Baku.

Washington's support for the alliance between Turkey, Azerbaijan and Israel forms part of a US strategy to prevent the world supply of oil and gas depending on Iranian pipelines. In this regard, Washington and Tel Aviv have proposed various ideas - including a project for a 'western Asia region,' to cover the Persian Gulf and the Caucasus, and a plan for an 'enlarged Middle East' - with the aim of giving certain Middle Eastern countries, especially Turkey and Israel, a legitimate reason for intervention in Caucasian affairs.

The US-Israeli vision is based on the belief that the Caucasus and Central Asia will be key strategic areas in the new world order as they constitute the main reservoir of energy in the 21st century. From a geographic perspective, Iran is the only route by land between the Gulf and the Caucasus. Moreover, since the states of the Caucasus and others in Central Asia are landlocked, Iran provides their only access to ports and the world market. Through its unique position, Iran has become an economic and strategic hub.

Washington and Tel Aviv, however, refuse to acknowledge this geographic imperative, and refuse to allow Iran such a role in the framework of the new unipolar world order. The two countries share the view that any Iranian influence in this region is not helpful to their alliance nor in the interest of their allies Baku and Ankara. The US and Israel have been able to benefit from regional apprehension over the spread of the Islamic Republic's ideologies. Despite repeated Iranian calls that an alliance with anti-Islamic regimes will only bring troubles to the area, regional leaders have cooperated with Israel and the US for economic and political rewards, as well as to avoid the consequences of an alliance with an enemy of the world's sole power. Washington is also actively promoting the idea that, as a producer of oil and gas, Iran is actually in competition with countries in the region.

The oil interests of the US, Israel and Turkey all converge to undermine the central role Iran could play in the distribution of the oil from the Caucasus. Their strategy took concrete form in the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline, between Azerbaijan and Turkey, which will divert the flow of oil from its logical route via Iran, thus increasing the country's isolation, while helping to contain Russia at the same time. This diversion guarantees that oil flows to the Mediterranean, only a few hours away from Israel. These allies have also succeeded in removing Tehran from the Azerbaijan oil committee and increasing the involvement of Jewish-owned oil investment companies in Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan.

This pipeline, however, has provoked controversy. While US oil lobbyists hold that it is overly expensive and that Iran constitutes a faster and more efficient outlet for Caucasian oil, the Israeli lobby focuses on the need to sideline Iran for the sake of Israeli and US strategic concerns.

Despite the avowedly peaceful nature of the Iranian nuclear programme, there is a general consensus in Israel that Iran's nuclear capabilities constitute a threat to the country's security. With some Israeli experts predicting that Iran could push Israel to a state of war, the nuclear dimension is a major consideration in Israeli strategy in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Israel's alliance with Turkey will give it access to intelligence about Iran's nuclear power, while its efforts to consolidate relations with the Islamic states of the Caucasus and Central Asia stem from a fear that Tehran could in the future form an Islamic axis that is hostile towards it, especially given the nuclear expertise of the Islamic countries of the region.

Kazakhstan, for one, has nuclear capabilities that Israel fears could fall into the hands of Arab or Islamic countries - a factor that no doubt played a part in Israel's decision to cooperate with the country by sending economic, scientific and technological delegations. Indeed, Kazakhstan, as an Islamic country with nuclear warheads and missiles, could provide other Islamic or Arab states with nuclear arms or expertise. According to some estimates, the country owns a large share of the missiles of the former Soviet Union, and it is rich in relevant human resources: scientists, engineers and technicians specialised in atomic power, nuclear weapons and space technology. Israel has succeeded in attracting many of these experts and employing them in its own research and scientific projects.

Israel's active interest in the Caucasus and Central Asia can be seen partly as a response to its desire to counter Moscow, the biggest supplier of weapons and nuclear technology to Iran. Turkey, meanwhile, as a secular Muslim country, can help Israel to prevent the expansion of the Islamic Revolution, which represents a real danger to Israel.

The widely held view in Iran is that Israel seeks to trigger differences between it and other Islamic states as the Islamic Revolution could impede the achievement of Zionist objectives. Iran, meanwhile, is keen to work and be seen as a sponsor of Islamic interests against Zionism, and seeks to mobilise the Islamic world against Israel as a result of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Coordination between Zionist Israel and secular Turkey is an obstacle to the spread of Iranian Islamic fundamentalism in the region. It also gives Tel Aviv a valuable moral asset: working with a strategic Muslim ally against the common threat of 'fundamentalist terrorism.' Israel has made great efforts in this context to prevent any coalition between fundamentalist powers and Iran, boosting its relations with the governments of the region, including Azerbaijan, Georgia and Kazakhstan, in the areas of security, intelligence and exchange of information on terrorism.

Despite the distance between Israel and the Caucasus and Central Asia, Israel has an increasingly important economic role in these regions. Israeli officials and businessmen recognise the exceptional opportunities for investment in an area rich in natural resources and with cheap yet skilled labour, and consider the region a large potential market, especially for technical equipment, chemicals and plastics. Important also in this strategy is that Israel, by opening lines of trade and communication between the countries of the region and the outside world, will be striking a strategic blow to Iran, traditionally the link between the region and the world market.

Israeli economists believe that their country is ideally suited to the task thanks to its extensive free trade relations with the US, the EU, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Poland, Jordan and Turkey, as well as its position as a centre for communications and exchange of information. Travel between Israel and the Caucasus and Central Asia region, meanwhile, is relatively cheap and frequent.

Israel also annually supports several joint educational scholarships and takes experts in various fields from the region to study in Mashav, the Centre for International Cooperation of the Foreign Ministry of Israel.

In Azerbaijan, Israel's relations are progressing well, largely as a result of the activities of the strategic tripartite partnership of Baku, Tel Aviv and Ankara, in addition to the efforts of the Azerbaijani Jewish lobby, which contributes to a great extent to strengthening Israeli-Azerbaijani relations. This strong lobby has persuaded the Tel Aviv government to build a hospital for Baku at a cost of between $30m and $40m.

Israel has made considerable efforts to discourage the immigration of the Jews in the region, including those concentrated in Baku, Bukhara, Samarkand and Tashkent, with a view that they could play a role in future economic projects.

Israeli strategic experts and ideologists seek to intensify relations with the region in a number of areas:

- Security: With Saddam Hussein removed from power in Baghdad and the possibility of the US launching an attack against Iran and Syria, the Caucasus and Central Asia region has become an area of direct concern to Tel Aviv. Despite Israel's success in developing its relations with India and China, it has its eyes firmly set on Russia, which it fears, in the long term, to be under threat from Iranian fundamentalism. On this basis, it is in the interest of both parties to create a strategic alliance, backed up by the large number of Jews who speak Russian and the 850,000 Israelis of Russian origin. Continued Russian arms deals with Iran give it the power to create a security problem for Israel.

- Politics: Tel Aviv is keen on boosting its relations with the six Islamic countries of the Caucasus and Central Asia -Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan-. Till now, Islam has not been an influential factor in the policies or identities of these countries, which distinguish between issues of religion and state and prioritise national interests over ideological ones. Tel Aviv intends through this cooperation to prove that its conflict in the Middle East is not with Islam or Muslims but rather with local or regional terrorism, and supports this by referring to the history of good relations binding Muslims and Jews in the Caucasus and Central Asia.

Israel also fears that the independence of some territories, such as Bukhara, Samarkand, Tashkent and Baku, might help them restore the central roles they previously played in Islamic history. Israeli strategists have thus called on their government not to view the region as one homogeneous entity, but to develop separate and different approaches to each country and ethnic group to ensure influence with all.

- Economy: Tel Aviv seeks to make use of the vast geographic area stretching from the Black Sea to the borders of China, rich in natural resources, oil and mineral wealth. Israeli relations with the region can thus be perceived in the framework of the long-term policy of investment. It is more or less universally agreed that the world economy will be centred on the region when the oil and gas pipelines moving to the west are complete. Israel thus seeks to preserve the Jewish groups scattered in this region as they would constitute a vital human bridge and a tool for communication and interaction between Tel Aviv and the societies of the Caucasus and Central Asia.

Israel has established an effective network of relations with the Turkic countries that also serves its interests. Israeli support to Turkey in the construction of the Ataturk dam and other water management projects has had a definite negative impact on the Arab countries on the Euphrates river, namely Iraq and Syria.

The question that arises here, is whether or not any gain achieved by Israel in the Caucasus and Central Asia means an inevitable loss for the Arab countries or Iran. The Caucasian and Central Asian countries definitely do not believe so. For these countries, cordial relations with Israel do not necessarily imply hostility towards any other country.