It has been less than a year since Azerbaijani forces poured into Nagorno-Karabakh, an ancient Armenian province that Joseph Stalin transferred to Azerbaijan as he gerrymandered the Caucasus. Nagorno-Karabakh is historically significant for two reasons: First, it is the traditional heartland of Armenia, the first country on Earth to embrace Christianity as its official religion.
Second, it is an incubator for democracy. Indeed, the democratic movement that percolated to a boil and ultimately brought down the Soviet Union’s disintegration began in Stepanakert, the Nagorno-Karabakh regional capital.
As the Soviet Union fell, the Armenian residents of the region asserted their constitutional right to autonomy first by petition and then by referendum. Azerbaijan rejected that regional autonomy, which it tried unsuccessfully to crush by brute force. With Azerbaijan’s army pushed back, Nagorno-Karabakh enjoyed nearly three decades of real parliamentary democracy in a region where democracy, at least until 2018, was absent or fleeting.
Nagorno-Karabakh’s self-rule ended on Sept. 19, 2023, when Azerbaijani troops marched into the region, extinguishing one of the oldest Christian communities in the world. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s decision to dynamite the local parliament underscored his hostility to democracy. Adding insult to injury, the Azerbaijani invasion came just four days after State Department bureaucrat Yuri Kim assured senators the United States would tolerate no attempt to “ethnically cleanse” Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh.
She lied, but she was not alone. Even as Aliyev humiliated U.S. envoys, Secretary of State Antony Blinken kept the gravy train of aid and military equipment flowing to Baku. Freedom House reported this week that “the documented actions of Azerbaijan meet the criteria for ethnic cleansing as understood in the context of the former Yugoslavia conflict” should put that to rest.
Why, then, do Blinken, national security adviser Jake Sullivan, and U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Samantha Power equivocate in the face of genocide?
There is no doubt: The U.S. decision to appease Azerbaijan comes from the top. On May 4, Mark Libby, the U.S. ambassador to Azerbaijan, declared he saw no reason to go to Shushi, the historic Armenian town that Azerbaijan has turned into a mecca for diplomats, paid-for journalists, and corrupt think tankers to kiss Aliyev’s ring. Someone in Washington read Libby the riot act because two days later, he not only visited Shushi, but he also omitted any mention of ethnic cleansing and the destruction of churches and Christian monuments as he declared himself impressed.
Nor is the State Department alone showing deference to Aliyev. On June 26, U.S. European Command congratulated the Azerbaijani army, again making no mention of videos circulating depicting rapes, mutilation, and summary execution of captured Armenian soldiers and civilians alike.
Perhaps President Joe Biden’s team believes the price is worth it if the U.S. can gain a final peace deal to settle the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict permanently. Blinken, Power, and Sullivan may even believe they can strong arm Aliyev and Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to agree to a peace deal during the July 9 to 11 NATO Summit in Washington, D.C.
All three Biden aides hide Biden’s infirmity in order to augment their own power. The job prospects of all three officials remain tied to Biden’s political longevity, and they hope winning a peace agreement could change the conversation about Biden’s fitness.
The irony, though, is that while Biden’s aides believe they can string Aliyev along, they have no concept that he strings them along. Aliyev will stall, muddle, and wait for U.S. elections before agreeing to any lasting peace.
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Blinken, Power, and Sullivan’s ambition, however, has made any peace less likely as they have forfeited the moral high ground by ignoring ethnic cleansing for the sake of a meaningless and empty signing ceremony.
Peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia is a noble goal, but its price cannot be ethnic cleansing. To whitewash Aliyev’s crimes represents neither sophisticated diplomacy nor a path to peace. Rather, it compounds a humanitarian tragedy whose price a new generation will pay in blood.
Michael Rubin is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is director of policy analysis at the Middle East Forum and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
