Paul Goble<\/p>\n
Vienna, January 19 \u2013 Twenty years ago this week, Mikhail Gorbachev sent troops into Azerbaijan to crush the popular front there, but what the Soviet president achieved by his actions was the further radicalization of Azerbaijan and the \u201cKarabakhization\u201d of Azerbaijani politics, a situation that continues to this day, according to a leading Moscow commentator.
\nIn an article posted on the \u201cNovaya politika\u201d site yesterday, Sergey Markedonov says that the unwillingness of the Soviet government to force Armenia to return Karabakh to Azerbaijan and its dispatch of Soviet forces to Baku \u201cbecame a transforming moment in the process of the national self-determination of Azerbaijan\u201d (novopol.ru\/text80474.html).
\nBoth Moscow\u2019s failure to defend the territorial integrity of the Azerbaijan SSR and the brutality of its forces in the Azerbaijani capital changed everything, Markedonov continues. Until then, Azerbaijan \u201chad lacked a powerful dissident movement,\u201d unlike Georgia or the Baltic states.
\nHowever, \u201cthe striving of the Kremlin to refrain from the adoption of a one-sided resolution of the \u2018Karabakh question\u2019 and the refusal of Moscow to fulfill its political contract to guarantee Azerbaijani territorial integrity pushed Baku onto the path of the search for national independence and sovereignty.\u201d
\nAnd that drive, one based on a near universal popular consensus that Karabakh must be reintegrated into Azerbaijan, meant that nationalism rather than communism became the republic\u2019s dominant ideology. Indeed, Markedonov says, it is possible to speak of \u201cKarabakhization\u201d as \u201cthe foundation\u201d for Azerbaijan\u2019s statehood.
\nIn response to the Soviet invasion, 45,000 Azerbaijanis quit the ranks of the CPSU, and Heidar Aliyev, who had been forced from the Politburo, reemerged as a national leader by speaking to a meeting of Azerbaijanis and others at the permanent representation of his republic in Moscow,
\nFor him and for all Azerbaijanis, Markedonov continues, \u201cproblem number one for independent Azerbaijan\u201d was the question of the restoration of the territorial integrity of the country, because its military defeat by the Armenians had had such \u201ca serious influence on the self-identification of Azerbaijanis.\u201d
\nIn the judgment of the Moscow analyst, \u201cHeidar Aliyev\u2019s return to Azerbaijani politics\u201d allowed the country to overcome ethnic separatism at home from the Talysh, Lezgins, and Avars) and \u201calso to minimize the threat [to predominantly Shiite Azerbaijan] from the side of radical Islam.\u201d
\nAfter 1993, Markedonov says, \u201cBaku easily dealt with both military risings and \u2018rose revolutions,\u2019 but \u201cthe main thing that Aliyev was able to achieve is an adequate assessment of the military and foreign policy resources of an independent Azerbaijan and on the basis of this assessment to form a sensible strategy.\u201d
\nAliyev recognized that using military force to resolve the problem was not a promising strategy and thus was willing to reach a ceasefire accord with Armenia, and he also understood, Markedonov says, that Baku needed to \u201covercome the unique diplomatic vacuum around the republic\u201d by reaching out to all major powers and portraying Azerbaijan as \u201ca civilized state.\u201d
\nIn recent years, many people have asked how long this \u201cbreathing space\u201d and \u201cconcentration\u201d can continue, Markedonov notes, but he argues that however emotionally powerful appeals to recover Karabakh may be, Azerbaijan would not profit from any use of military power anytime soon.
\nFirst of all, the Moscow specialist on the Caucasus says, \u201cboth Armenia and unrecognized Nagorno Karabakh are serious competitors,\u201d something that dashes any hopes for \u201ca blitzkrieg.\u201d Second, the unsuccessful use of force could threaten the stability of political arrangements in Azerbaijan, as the case of Elchibey in the early 1990s shows.
\nAnd third, any military campaign \u201cwould create problems not only of a military but also of an informational-political character.\u201d Overnight, such actions would \u201cdestroy the image of Azerbaijan, which has been carefully cultivated over the years, as a victim of \u2018Armenian aggression.\u2019\u201d
\nEven if Baku were successful, it would not be forgiven, Markedonov argues, saying that Azerbaijanis should not see the Russian moves in Chechnya as a precedent. That is because, he continues, \u201cwhat the world forgave Moscow for is something it would not forgive Baku.\u201d Consequently, Azerbaijan\u2019s only option, he concludes is to \u201cwait and \u2018concentrate.\u2019\u201d
\nBut the passions ignited by the events of Black January and the centrality of the fate of Karabakh and the other occupied territories remain so great that it is perhaps no surprise that on this \u201cround\u201d anniversary, many Azerbaijanis are hoping against hope that the negotiations will lead to the recovery of their lands or seeking alternatives.
\nAnd one of the most interesting \u2013 and, following Markedonov\u2019s argument, instructive — is the call by the Sheikh ul-Islam Pasha-Zade, the head of the Muslim Spiritual Directorate in Azerbaijan, for Gorbachev to be brought to trial in the Hague for his crimes against the Azerbaijani nation (www.interfax-religion.ru\/islam\/?act=news&div=33786).
\nThat won\u2019t happen, of course, but it is a reminder of the continuing sensitivity of the events of a generation ago in the Caucasus now, an impact that any who are seeking to address the problems there must not only acknowledge but also face up to, all the more now because these feelings have been allowed to fester so long.<\/p>\n
http:\/\/windowoneurasia.blogspot.com\/2010\/01\/window-on-eurasia-how-gorbachev.html<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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