Author: Fabrizio Vielmini – 26/06/2023

Following geopolitical turbulences, Armenia is going through an internal political earthquake of unusual scale. It could not be otherwise since the issue that has defined Armenian politics and common values during the last 40 years at least, namely Nagorno-Karabakh, has been completely overturned by the results of 2020 war and the following affirmation of Azerbaijan geopolitical sway that followed.It is equally natural that the man sitting at the helm of the political establishment during this cataclysm, premier Nikol Pashinyan, is now taking all the blow-backs. Pashinyan built his political career as the poster boy for the “magnificent and progressive fates” of Western liberalism in the region. When he got the power Pashinyan had, obviously, to come to terms with the realities of a small nation encircled by hostile elements, а situation that the line followed by Yerevan during the previous decades had only contributed to make more difficult and unconditional. Accordingly, despite the wishes of his liberal supporters, Pashinyan could only keep following the obliged way to refer to Moscow. Despite the advices of the latter, as his predecessors before, Pashinyan did nothing to correct the unbearable situation in which Armenia was occupying twice more of Azerbaijani space outside the Nagorno-Karabakh’s boundaries. Despite the clouds of war gathering on the other side of Karabakh’s Line of Contacts, he did not listen to Russian advices.Then, when war finally erupted and Armenia received a sound defeat by Azerbaijan following 44 days of fighting, Pashinyan position (and Armenian presence in Karabakh) was saved by Russian peacekeeping intervention. According to a number of Russian analytics, the outcome of the war may have been a “pre-planned defeat”, on which the pro-Western forces of Armenia betted in order to get rid of Karabakh military defence, the factor obliging Yerevan to maintain strict military and geopolitical alliance with Moscow. From this perspective, the outcome of the war was a catastrophe of no less momentum. In facts, Russian positions in the country came out even stronger. The Joint Azerbaijani-Armenian-Russian Statement of 10^th November 2020, foresaw Moscow as the main broker of post-war regional assessment, responsible in particular for communications and logistic between both Karabakh Armenians and Yerevan and the connections between Azerbaijan and Turkey along what was to be known as the Zangezur corridor[1].However, changing a situation which had been frozen for a quarter of century, the outcome of the war put out into motion a number of strategic moves across the Caucasus and the external geopolitical players having a stake in the regional balance of power. This concerns the new position of Turkey as participant in the Azerbaijani victory as well as the concerns of Iran fearing to be sidelined by the new realities[2]. Most notably, in the wake of the escalation in the Ukraine, the Western imperialism factor, initially ousted from the regional games by effect of the 2020 agreements, has been seeking for a way to renter the Caucasus through the manipulation of the Karabakh issue. Indeed, Russia has got bogged down in Ukraine in front of NATO power, losing by this way the capacity to exert geopolitical leadership around the Karabakh conundrum. Accordingly trust in Russia has seriously decreased among the Armenian public, especially among the intelligentsia and the elite, although the common people maintain the sense of attachment as before. On such a background, Washington and London opened a large diplomatic manoeuvre aimed at extracting Armenia from Russian orbit. As usual, the EU has been instrumental in the Anglo-Saxon plot. The US-UK-EU trio multiplied efforts at “normalization” of the relations between Yerevan and Baku with several rounds of negotiations aimed at facilitating Russia exit from Karabakh thus annulling the implications of the 2020 Joint Statement and a final Armenia’s withdrawal from the CSTO.To the extent of this manoeuvring, Nikol Pashinyan has almost exhausted his political capital. As the leader superseding over defeat and negotiating the unavoidable cession of claims over Karabakh, Pashinyan is extremely unpopular among the Armenian people. He keeps on only out of a sense of absence of alternatives and a looming apathy where citizens are mostly concerned with their personal interests. To the point that the decoupling of Armenian politics from the Karabakh issue, the single factor that mostly shaped moods and choices in the previous three decades, seems now a possibility. Pashinyan may well be the Armenian statist who will sign the agreement with Azerbaijan relinquishing forever Yerevan claims on the separatist province but immediately after he will be over for good as a politician and national leader. At that point, with an active Western sponsorship, a big replacement will take place at the head of Armenia. Given mistrust of Russia, the main political character who could emerge to play a central role in Armenian politics is the current Secretary of the Security Council, Armen Grigoryan[3]. Grigoryan’s name raises serious concerns in Moscow since he presents a solid CV as an Anglo-American agent of influence. A graduate of the American University in Yerevan, he made career working for two Western “civil society” structures, “Counterpart International Inc.” and “Transparency International”. Both organizations stand out among the plethora of “soft power” instruments used by London and Washington to recruit alternative élites across post-Soviet societies[4].Indeed, in the case that the likes of Grigoryan would make up the next establishment in Yerevan, relations with Russia can only further deteriorate while Western interests will be promoted.In a similar scenario, one can only be pessimist about the future of Armenia. Relationships within the whole Caucasus will enter a renewed “Great Game” scenario. It can be assumed that Turkey will be even more proactive, trying to reach and attract through Azerbaijan the other Turkic speaking republics of Central Asia, possibly in a renewed entente with NATO. Similar developments will provoke corresponding and contrary moves form the side of Iran which will further align with Russia. In the end, not only Armenia will find itself as the classic clay pot between iron ones but another hotbed of war and chaos will emerge along with the Ukrainian one. For the benefit and the further prolongation of the bankrupt Anglo-American system…

 

 

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