The Gaza War’s Political Effects in the Caucasus

 By Henry Srebrnik, [Fredericton, NB] Daily Gleaner

The South Caucasus has received increased international attention of late with heated discussions on Georgia’s possible European Union membership, which has roiled that country’s politics, with many supporting Russia against it.

Less noticed has been the effect of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel when it comes to Armenia and Azerbaijan, longtime enemies who most recently fought a war that saw Armenia lose its hold over the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave within Azerbaijan.

The Gaza war has put little pressure on Georgia, but since it pits Iran and Israel against each other, it has put both Yerevan and Baku in a difficult spot. It has compelled both Armenia and Azerbaijan to consider calculated neutrality as the most prudent course of action.

On Oct. 7, the Georgian Foreign Ministry issued a statement condemning the “horrific terrorist attack on the State of Israel” and expressing “solidarity with the Israeli government and people.” The country’s embattled president, Salome Zourabichvili, took to X (formerly Twitter) to express Georgia’s “full solidarity with Israel in these difficult moments.”

Georgia’s pro-Israeli position was further highlighted five days later when the Israeli ambassador to Georgia, Hadas Meitzad, was invited to address the Georgian Parliament’s Foreign Relations Committee.  Meitzad accused Iran of ultimately being behind the terrorist attack, as Hamas would not be able to conduct such a large-scale attack without significant financial and logistical support.

In turn Mahmoud Adib, the Iranian ambassador to Georgia, on Oct. 14 denounced these allegations as “unfounded” and called on Tbilisi, “a long-standing opponent of occupation, to stand with the Palestinian people in their quest for freedom and justice.”

This hasn’t changed many minds. Support for Israel allows the Georgian government to gain favour with its Western partners, especially the United States. It also might improve the country’s chances to join the EU.

In Armenia, though, the Israel-Palestine conflict is largely seen in the context of Israel’s growing economic and military partnership with Azerbaijan. Yerevan has criticized Israel on this matter, as Israel has been Azerbaijan’s main arms supplier. That support contributed to Baku’s efforts in wresting back Nagorno-Karabakh from Armenia last September.

In an earlier battle between the two countries in the autumn of 2020, which also resulted in an Azerbaijani victory, its success was due in part to the use of advanced weaponry purchased from Israel, as well as its political support.

Last Oct. 3, the World Jewish Centre in Yerevan was vandalized in an act that some believe was directly related to Israel’s support for Azerbaijan. The Armenian Foreign Ministry condemned the attack.”

On June 21 Armenia announced that it was officially recognizing Palestine as a state. Still, Yerevan’s reaction to the Israel-Hamas war has been quite measured, with the Foreign Ministry expressing shock at “the violence between the Palestinians and Israel and targeting of the civilian population” and declaring support for “international calls to stop the violence.”

Anti-Israeli sentiments in Armenia, nevertheless, persist and prevents Yerevan from declaring support for Israel. As well, Iran has emerged as an ardent supporter of Armenia, declaring any breach of Armenia’s territorial integrity “unacceptable.”

Why would Tehran support Armenia against Azerbaijan, a fellow Muslim country? Iran is wary of Azerbaijani irredentism, since much of northwestern Iran, next to Azerbaijan, is populated by ethnic Azeris, not Persians.

Iranian Azerbaijan includes three northwestern Iranian provinces and there have been previous attempts at secession. Baku-based groups such as the Southern Azerbaijan National Awakening Movement have sought to unify Iran’s Azeri community with Azerbaijan.

The Israel-Hamas conflict has put Azerbaijan, as a Shia-majority Muslim country, in an exceedingly difficult position. Historically, the country has enjoyed close relations with both Israel and the Islamic world, including the Palestinians.

Just six months before the attack, Azerbaijan had opened its embassy in Tel Aviv. In addition, it also opened a representative office in Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. Azerbaijan has also avoided declaring Hamas a terrorist organization.

The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry took a neutral position from the first day of the war, “condemning violence against civilians in the Israeli-Palestine conflict zone” and calling for “an urgent de-escalation of the situation.” On Oct. 18, in his address to the expanded meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov stated that Baku “supports the Palestinian people in their struggle for statehood” and called for the solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “on the basis of the two-state principle.”

At the Organization of Turkic States summit in Kazakhstan on Nov. 3, the Azerbaijani president avoided condemning either side and merely expressed general “concern over the ongoing conflict.”

This position also was careful not to alienate Azerbaijan’s main ally, Turkey, which fully supports the Palestinians. On June 2, members of the group “A Thousand Youth for Palestine” attacked the offices of the State Oil Company of the Republic of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) in Istanbul. Azerbaijan supplies approximately 40 per cent of Israel’s oil. They demanded that SOCAR cease selling oil to Israel via the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhun pipeline.

Azerbaijan has become more vocal on the war in Gaza of late. During a joint press conference with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Cairo on June 8, President Ilham Aliyev maintained that an independent Palestinian state should be established and East Jerusalem should be its capital.

 

Post-Gadhafi Libya Remains Adrift

 By Henry Srebrnik, [Fredericton, NB] Daily Gleaner

The Gaza war has sucked most of the news oxygen out of the Middle East. But there are troubles elsewhere, too.

Libya, which has been in a state of chaos since the downfall of Moammar Gadhafi in 2011, lurches from crisis to crisis. The economy is close to collapse; corruption and nepotism are widespread in the country. It iss divided by two rival governments, plus other militias. The battle for control over Libya crosses tribal, regional, political, and even religious lines.

In April, yet another United Nations special envoy for Libya was frustrated enough with the political situation in the fractured country to quit his job. After 18 months in the post, the Senegalese diplomat Abdoulaye Bathily said he had done his best to get the five key political actors in Libya to resolve contested issues over electoral laws, form a unified government and set the country on a path towards long-delayed elections.

“But my attempts were met with stubborn resistance, unreasonable expectations and indifference to the interests of the Libyan people,” he declared on April 16. He left behind a political process best described as moribund.

This was only to be expected. In 2020, Ghassan Salame resigned, saying that “for two years, I tried to re-unite Libyans and restrain foreign interference.”  It became too much for him, and he admitted that he could “no longer continue with this level of stress.” Salame was succeeded by Jan Kubis, who resigned in 2021, also citing health reasons.

Despite the backing of the Security Council, the special envoy’s impact has been limited for years, given that the country remains split between two rival governments: the UN-recognized one under President Abdul Hamid Dbeibah in Tripoli and a rival administration in Benghazi in the east led by General Khalifa Haftar, the commander of the Libyan Arab Armed Forces.

The five political actors Bathily referred to are President Dbeibah; General Haftar; Mohammed Takala, the chairman of the High Council of State; Mohamed Yunus al-Menfi, the president of the Libyan Presidential Council; and Aguila Saleh, an influential speaker of the House of Representatives in Benghazi.

Most international policymakers seem to believe that Libya’s rivals must themselves break the current impasse. The UN feels that progress is not possible without the approval of key powerbrokers and their international backers.

On the other hand, others believe the only realistic chance of ending the status quo is through an internationally mandated process. After all, the attempt to produce a government through Libyan institutions alone has served only to produce parallel governments and reintroduce administrative division. Unfortunately, Bathily seemed to conclude he had no option but to rely on existing institutional leaders.

In his final remarks to the UN Security Council, he criticized Libya’s leaders for “continuing to articulate preconditions for their participation in the dialogue as a way to maintain the status quo.” UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres appointed Stephanie Koury as Deputy Special Representative as a temporary officer in charge.

A new envoy will not have the luxury of time to slowly build a new process. The price of Libya’s tenuous stability has been widespread and growing corruption helping to entrench the governing elite. 

With foreign exchange reserves, vast natural resources, and a population of around seven million, Libya has remarkable per capita wealth. Yet, despite government expenditures continuing to rise, that wealth is not being sufficiently deployed in service to its population.

Lately, the growth in Libya’s kleptocratic sector has accelerated. This means that Libya is not heading for any new equilibrium or new order. Instead, there is a substantial risk that its current leaders might end up destroying the country’s most essential institutions, including the National Oil Corporation (NOC), which is responsible for almost all of the nation’s income.

Owing to the severity of the Libyan crisis’s most violent phases between 2014 and 2020, Washington and other Western capitals remain wary of a relapse into armed confrontation. Policymakers have therefore tended to focus their engagement on de-escalation and conflict mediation.

Kleptocracy, however, cannot be the basis upon which a functioning state is built: a corrupt bargain among Libya’s incumbent leaders does not constitute sustainable peacebuilding, especially given that no progress is currently being made in security sector reform or militia disarmament. It has led to an entrenched culture of impunity.

Libya has become a conduit for vast, sprawling illicit networks where smugglers move drugs, arms and people. Such a political culture is unable to respond to crises. Last September, torrential rains brought by a major Mediterranean storm led to the failure of a series of dams near the coastal city of Derna.

The sudden, overwhelming flooding that followed washed whole neighborhoods into the sea, leading to perhaps as many as 20,000 deaths. The volatility of recent years meant the country’s separate regimes and their feckless officials have left critical infrastructure in a state of neglect. Derna itself was the site of a brief takeover by an Islamic State offshoot in 2014.

“Between 2011 and 2014, there were already concerns about the state of Libyan infrastructure,” Mary Fitzgerald, a Libya expert at the Middle East Institute, explained. “And then Libya went through a six-year civil conflict from 2014 to 2020 and a lot of infrastructure was damaged during that conflict.” And it isn’t being rebuilt.

 

West Africa is in Political Disarray

 By Henry Srebrnik, [Saint John, N.B.] Telegraph-Journal

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), whose leaders met in Abuja, Nigeria, on July 7, warned that the region faced “disintegration” after the military rulers of Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso cemented a breakaway union. The three states had already left the bloc earlier this year.

The three countries formed a “Confederation of Sahel States” at a rival meeting a day before the ECOWAS summit, creating another problem for the bloc. ECOWAS is already wrestling with sweeping jihadist violence, financial trouble and challenges mustering a regional force.

The head of the ECOWAS Commission, Omar Alieu Touray, said the Sahel countries’ withdrawal risked “political isolation,” losing millions of dollars in funding and hampering freedom of movement. The break would also worsen insecurity and disrupt the work of the long-proposed regional force, Touray stressed. “Our region is facing the risk of disintegration.”

Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso, having ousted weak civilian-led governments, have railed against the presence of the former colonial power, France, and turned toward Russia and China for support. The new military authorities are one after the other pledging their allegiance to Moscow and driving the West out of the Sahel.

The three juntas came to power in a series of coups over recent years and announced their intention to leave ECOWAS in January. They have shifted away from former colonial ruler France and expelled French troops, with Niger’s General Abdourahamane Tiani calling for the establishment of a “community far removed from the stranglehold of foreign powers.

“Our people have irrevocably turned their backs on ECOWAS,” Tiani said at the Sahel group meeting in Niamey, Niger, rebuffing the bloc’s pleas to come back into the fold. The three countries’ decision to leave was fuelled in part by their accusation that Paris was manipulating ECOWAS and not providing enough support for anti-jihadist efforts.

Before the coup last year, Niger was seen by Western diplomats as something of a bulwark in a region where juntas and radical Islamist insurgencies were gaining ground. Now its regime has pivoted the impoverished country firmly away from the West, booting out French troops before it moved to end the significant American footprint in the country’s desert uplands.

The United States over the last decade has spent nearly one billion dollars in Niger. It maintained a force of some 1,100 service members at two bases in Niger, the larger of which, at Agadez in the north of the country, served as a regional hub for drones in the fight against terrorism. Created six years ago at a cost of $110 million, this base was already essentially inactive since the coup.

On April 19, Nigerien Prime Minister Ali Lamine Zeine announced to Kurt Campbell, the U.S. State Department’s second-in-command, that the American contingent was no longer welcome. Russian military personnel arrived in Niger soon afterwards.

Some Nigeriens see the junta exercising a new kind of sovereignty after years of overweening French interest. Abdoulaye Oussein, who leads a new civil society organization in Niamey, said that Niger and Russia would have a “win-win partnership” and that he was proud that Russian instructors would train Niger’s military.

“Why is it a problem for the Americans and France that the Russians are helping us?” he asked. “I think we’re free to make our own choices.”

The developments are “a blow to Western counterterrorism efforts in the Sahel,” Ulf Laessing, head of the Sahel program at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, a German think tank, indicated. “Perhaps even worse, a U.S. pullout will further open the door for an expansion of Russia and Iran in the Sahel.”

Geopolitical intrigue courses through the region. This part of Africa has become a playground for foreign powers, not least Russia, which provides security for coup regimes and orchestrates massive disinformation campaigns leading to the ousting of Western forces.

A Russian deputy defence minister, General Yunus-bek Yevkurov, with special responsibility for relations with the region, makes frequent visits to Sahel countries that sign military cooperation agreements with Moscow. It’s no coincidence that, as soon as the Russians landed in Niamey, an anti-American demonstration drew several thousand people.

“Washington has a lack of self-awareness about how it is coming across,” Cameron Hudson, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, remarked. “They have made Russia the boogeyman in all of this, like what the French have done, but that is a way to deflect responsibility and to avoid any kind of introspection about the policies the U.S. has pursued.”

Meanwhile, a China-backed pipeline that would make Niger an oil-exporting country is being threatened by a diplomatic dispute with neighbouring Benin. The 1,930-kilometer pipeline runs from Niger’s Chinese-built Agadem oil field to the port of Cotonou in Benin.

It was designed to help oil-rich but landlocked Niger achieve an almost fivefold increase in oil production through a $400 million deal signed in April with China’s state-run national petroleum company.

But Niger has kept its border with Benin closed, accusing the country of hosting French troops that pose a threat to it, which Benin denies. “It is a completely messy situation and the only way for a resolution is if both administrations directly engage and resolve issues,” according to Ryan Cummings, director of the Africa-focused security consulting company Signal Risk.