President Donald J. Trump will seek to stabilize war-torn regions, resolve conflicts, and promote trade and investment. The Middle East, with ongoing conflicts in Gaza, Syria, Yemen, and elsewhere, as well as the Caucasus, which has faced a prolonged conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, are two regions poised for American peacemaking efforts.
Pro-American, pro-Western coalitions may assist Washington in achieving its strategic goals of peace founded on a shared fear of Iran’s aggressive intentions; the Israel-Azerbaijan partnership has been a success story for some thirty years. It exemplifies a larger trend towards trans-regional partnerships between Middle Eastern and South Caucasus states. The same trend exists in Central Asia, where Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has proposed that Kazakhstan and Qatar become strategic partners.
This trend can greatly benefit the U.S. The Azerbaijani-Israeli partnership offers Washington an excellent opportunity to promote peace in both the Middle East and South Caucasus, aligning with American interests and policies as outlined by the new Administration. Azerbaijan and Israel are fundamentally status quo states, particularly as Armenia and Azerbaijan are gradually moving towards a peace agreement. Thus, Russo-Iranian-Chinese efforts to establish their own trans-regional hostile alliances in the Caucasus, Middle East, and beyond pose a threat to U.S. interests – and both Israel and Azerbaijan.
The Russo-Chinese alliance that profoundly concerns bothEurope and Asia represents another trans-regional alliance system. Likewise, the Russo-Iranian alignment, formalized in the newly-signed bilateral treaty between Moscow and Tehran, represents an aggressive anti-American pact that can have broad destabilizing effects.
Thanks to recent developments in the Caucasus and the Middle East, the time is ripe to deepen the Israel-Azerbaijan partnership, linking it to a broader trans-regional process and including Arab states that are also targets of the Russo-Iranian treaty.Indeed, some commentators have already advocated extending the Abraham Accords to the Caucasus and Central Asia. In the Caucasus, Armenia has decisively broken with Moscow, openly seeks membership in the EU, and has signed a partnership deal with the U.S. Azerbaijan’s ties to Israel now encompass expanding defense coordination, intelligence sharing, and trade, and Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan are both major energy exporters to Israel.
Meanwhile, Azerbaijan’s economic relationships with Central Asian states have progressed so far that it has become a de facto Central Asian actor. Azerbaijan’s connection with a key Central Asian state like Kazakhstan is a harbinger of regional and inter-regional cooperation apart from the great powers. Indeed, Central Asia’s connection to Azerbaijan and the Caucasus is vital in linking Central Asia to Europe.
Israel’s strong ties with Azerbaijan, coupled with its endeavors to raise its Central Asian profile, offer an avenue to participate with Azerbaijan in integrating these states with the global economy without the involvement of either Moscow or Beijing.
Russo-Azerbaijani relations have deteriorated since Russia shot down an Azerbaijani civilian flight on December 25, 2024, and subsequently stonewalled Baku’s demands for acceptance of responsibility. Farhad Mammadov, a political analyst in Baku, is quoted in a January 16th New York Times report about the incident that “Russia’s political and economic ‘levers of pressure’ on Azerbaijan had been reduced to ‘practically none.’” Additionally, Aykhan Hajizada, spokesman for Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry, bluntly argued, “They don’t want to lose Azerbaijan as well.”
Tehran and Moscow’s response to the fall of Bashar al-Assad, and the trouncing of Hamas and Hezbollah, is found in the new bilateral treaty. Their newly inked treaty proclaims their mutual desire to strengthen regional security in the former Soviet space and the Middle East. It announces enhanced defense cooperation that suggests more mutual arms and technology transfers. Thus, military-technical cooperation is expressly included in the pact as a mutual commitment. Given Iran’s missile and drone transfers to Russia and express interest in advanced fighters like the Su-35 and air defenses, this could also include support for exchanges of nuclear, missile, and space technology. The treaty further states that both sides will expand intelligence cooperation and anti-terrorist cooperation, suggesting collaboration with Iranian efforts to subvert Azerbaijan, along with support for Iranian proxies in the Middle East. The treaty also openly advocates excluding American and European influence in the Middle East and the Caspian basin. Economically, it emphasizes creating a North-South transport corridor from Russia to Iran and presumably beyond that would damage independent Central Asian trade and transport routes while tying Azerbaijan to a Russian-dominated economic scheme.
Thus, this accord, though not a fully-fledged defense alliance, nonetheless represents a treaty for increased subversion, terrorism against both Israel and Azerbaijan,support of Russia’s war in Ukraine, sanction-busting, and weapons and possibly nuclear technology trade between the parties. It, therefore, challenges the Abraham Accords, President Donald Trump’s signal achievement in his first term that represents a successful blueprint for Middle Eastern peace. Indeed, the cease-fires in both Lebanon and Gaza create opportunities to extend these accords to Saudi Arabia and beyond, thereby transforming the Middle East. The Administration should, therefore, extend the Accords to Azerbaijan; enhance U.S. support for the Azerbaijani-Israeli partnership, and display increased U.S. interest in the Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Middle East. While the obstacles here are substantial, so are these opportunities that come only fleetingly to policymakers. Therefore, the Trump administration should seize the day. Carpe Diem!
Dr. Stephen J. Blank is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow in the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Eurasia Program. He has published over 900 articles and monographs on Soviet/Russian, U.S., Asian, and European military and foreign policies, testified frequently before Congress on Russia, China, and Central Asia, and consulted for the U.S. Government, major think tanks, and foundations.
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