Washington generally counts three military powers to “matter” in the Middle East: Israel, Turkey, and Iran, the only states in the region able to project force beyond their borders. The Gulf monarchies have spent lavishly on the latest American and European equipment, but they have yet to use it effectively. That view leaves out Azerbaijan, a country of 10 million that belongs to the greater Middle East and sits on Iran’s northern border. The interests of Baku, Azerbaijan’s capital, align more closely with America’s than Washington realizes, and as the war with Iran drags on, the U.S. should bring Azerbaijan into its regional defense framework.
Iran has already treated Azerbaijan as a combatant. On March 5, less than a week after American and Israeli strikes began, Iranian drones hit the airport in the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan and landed near a school, injuring two people. Two days later, Azerbaijan’s State Security Service said it had broken up an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps plot against the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan oil pipeline, the Israeli Embassy, a synagogue, and members of the country’s Mountain Jewish community. Iran’s attacks against Gulf oil facilities drew wall-to-wall media coverage in the West, while the attacks on Azerbaijan were virtually ignored.
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