International Conference

«Conflicts in the Caucasus: History, the Present and Prospects for Resolution»

Baku (Azerbaijan) 22-23 October, 2012 and Tbilisi (Georgia) 25-26 October, 2012

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THE HOLLOWS AND PITFALLS BEHIND BIG OIL PROSPECTS IN AZERBAIJAN

Alec Rasizade

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Dr. Alec Rasizade, senior associate at the Historical Research Center in Washington (U.S.A.).

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In his last government purge, president Heidar Aliev reshuffled the entire cabinet of ministers including its chief Fuad Guliev, followed later by resignation of the outspoken parliament speaker Rasul Guliev. Vice premier Artur Rasizade took over as prime minister at the time when the free fall of national economy was increasingly hastening a civil upheaval with unpredictable consequences. If not the sagacity and indisputable authority of its experienced leader, the present regime might well follow the suit of preceding Azerbaijani governments in a rapid succession of incumbent “strongmen” in presidential quarters, who failed to deliver on their fabulous promises to create, as they put it, a “Second Kuwait” around Baku. What awaits an American agenda in contemporary Azerbaijan, as Mr. Aliev has returned into the marble palace overlooking the Caspian Sea?

The Pitfalls of Belligerence

Since 1988, the recurring cycles of succession in the period between Aliev-first secretary and Aliev-president culminated, as a rule, in a loss to Armenians of yet another piece of Azerbaijan S.S.R. titular territory and the resulting displacement by incited mobs of yet another sitting ruler from the marble palace: Kamran Bagirov, Rahman Vezirov, Ayaz Mutallibov, Abulfaz Elchibey, plus interim figureheads. Since the demise of the U.S.S.R. neither the Kremlin-Byzantine style, nor a Western political understanding apply to this pattern. The indigenous Azerbaijan politics is probably a mix of Caucasian egalitarian restiveness at the bottom and traditional Middle Eastern intrigue on the top, fed by past hatreds, clan cronyism, pervasive corruption and, of course, the personal enrichment through political power. We must as well take into account the long history of deceitful submission to regional and world powers whenever the Azeri chiefs had to deal with them. It would take a life of a distant orientalist to fathom these driving forces (beyond the acclaimed anthropological studies, historical research, human rights issues, immediate political advice and economic analyses), and consistently caution our government against the complications of the oil-driven U.S. policy in a land of distinctive political culture.

Having survived three coup d’etat attempts since his comeback in 1993, president Aliev too could fall a victim to a social explosion ignited by tremendous plight, notwithstanding the present political apathy of his fatigued people, as it happened to his predecessors. But, being wiser, Mr. Aliev immediately reached an armistice agreement with the Armenians (who had by then accomplished their strategic goals), and has managed to maintain it so long, averting engagement in a self-destructive reconquest effort, thus cutting short any expectations of him to follow the beaten path of bellicose antecessors.

Azerbaijan’s ragtag military, which hardly may be called a regular army, or navy, or air force, has a record of combat ineffectiveness, as well as low discipline and morale, entrenched corruption through the ranks, mass draft dodging………..

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