In particular, four senior diplomats and military
intelligence officers say that the United States has
concluded that Israel has recently been granted access to
airbases on Iran's northern border. To do what, exactly, is
not clear. "The Israelis have bought an airfield," a senior
administration official told me in early February, "and the
airfield is called Azerbaijan."
Senior U.S. intelligence officials are increasingly
concerned that Israel's military expansion into Azerbaijan
complicates U.S. efforts to dampen Israeli-Iranian tensions,
according to the sources. Military planners, I was told,
must now plan not only for a war scenario that includes the
Persian Gulf -- but one that could include the Caucasus. The
burgeoning Israel-Azerbaijan relationship has also become a
flashpoint in both countries' relationship with Turkey, a
regional heavyweight that fears the economic and political
fallout of a war with Iran. Turkey's most senior government
officials have raised their concerns with their U.S.
counterparts, as well as with the Azeris, the sources said.
The Israeli embassy in Washington, the Israel Defense
Forces, and the Mossad, Israel's national intelligence
agency, were all contacted for comment on this story but did
not respond.
The Azeri embassy to the United States also did not respond
to requests for information regarding Azerbaijan's security
agreements with Israel. During a recent visit to Tehran,
however, Azerbaijan's defense minister publicly ruled out the use of Azerbaijan for a
strike on Iran. "The Republic of Azerbaijan, like always in
the past, will never permit any country to take advantage of
its land, or air, against the Islamic Republic of Iran,
which we consider our brother and friend country," he said.
But even if his government makes good on that promise, it
could still provide Israel with essential support. A U.S.
military intelligence officer noted that Azeri defense
minister did not explicitly bar Israeli bombers from landing
in the country after a strike. Nor did he rule out the
basing of Israeli search-and-rescue units in the country.
Proffering such landing rights -- and mounting search and
rescue operations closer to Iran -- would make an Israeli
attack on Iran easier.
"We're watching what Iran does closely," one of the U.S.
sources, an intelligence officer engaged in assessing the
ramifications of a prospective Israeli attack confirmed.
"But we're now watching what Israel is doing in Azerbaijan.
And we're not happy about it."
Israel's deepening relationship with the Baku government
was cemented in February by a $1.6 billion
arms agreement that provides Azerbaijan with sophisticated
drones and missile-defense systems. At the same time, Baku's
ties with Tehran have frayed: Iran presented a note to
Azerbaijan's ambassador last month claiming that Baku has
supported Israeli-trained assassination squads targeting
Iranian scientists, an accusation the Azeri government called
"a slander." In February, a member of Yeni Azerbadzhan --
the ruling party -- called on the government to change the
country's name to "North Azerbaijan," implicitly suggesting
that the 16 million Azeris who live in northern Iran ("South
Azerbaijan") are in need of liberation.
And this month, Baku announced that 22 people had been
arrested for spying on behalf of Iran, charging they had
been tasked by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to
"commit terrorist acts against the U.S., Israeli, and other
Western states' embassies." The allegations prompted multiple angry denials from the
Iranian government.
It's clear why the Israelis prize their ties to Azerbaijan
-- and why the Iranians are infuriated by them. The Azeri
military has four abandoned, Soviet-era airfields that would
potentially be available to the Israelis, as well as four
airbases for their own aircraft, according to the
International Institute for Strategic Studies' Military Balance 2011.
The U.S. intelligence and diplomatic officials told me they
believe that Israel has gained access to these airbases
through a series of quiet political and military
understandings. "I doubt that there's actually anything in
writing," added a senior retired American diplomat who spent
his career in the region. "But I don't think there's any
doubt -- if Israeli jets want to land in Azerbaijan after an
attack, they'd probably be allowed to do so. Israel is
deeply embedded in Azerbaijan, and has been for the last two
decades."
The prospect of Israel using Azerbaijan's airfields for an
Iranian attack first became public in December 2006, when
retired Israeli Brig. Gen. Oded Tira angrily denounced the George W. Bush
administration's lack of action on the Iranian nuclear
program. "For our part," he wrote in a widely cited
commentary, "we should also coordinate with Azerbaijan the
use of airbases in its territory and also enlist the support
of the Azeri minority in Iran." The "coordination" that Tira
spoke of is now a reality, the U.S. sources told me.
Access to such airfields is important for Israel, because
it would mean that Israeli F-15I and F-16I fighter-bombers
would not have to refuel midflight during a strike on Iran's
nuclear facilities, but could simply continue north and land
in Azerbaijan. Defense analyst David Isenberg describes the
ability to use Azeri airfields as "a significant asset" to
any Israel strike, calculating that the 2,200-mile trip from
Israel to Iran and back again would stretch Israel's
warplanes to their limits. "Even if they added extra fuel
tanks, they'd be running on fumes," Isenberg told me, "so
being allowed access to Azeri airfields would be crucial."
Former CENTCOM commander Gen. Joe Hoar simplified Israel's
calculations: "They save themselves 800 miles of fuel," he
told me in a recent telephone interview. "That doesn't
guarantee that Israel will attack Iran, but it certainly
makes it more doable."
Using airbases in Azerbaijan would ensure that Israel would
not have to rely on its modest fleet of air refuelers or on
its refueling expertise, which a senior U.S. military
intelligence officer described as "pretty minimal." Military
planners have monitored Israeli refueling exercises, he
added, and are not impressed. "They're just not very good at
it."
Retired Air Force Col. Sam Gardiner, who conducted a study for a think tank affiliated
with the Swedish Ministry of Defense of likely
Israeli attack scenarios in March 2010, said that Israel is
capable of using its fleet of F-15I and F-16I warplanes in a
strike on Iran without refueling after the initial top-off
over Israel. "It's not weight that's a problem," he said,
"but the numbers of weapons that are mounted on each
aircraft." Put simply, the more distance a fighter-bomber is
required to travel, the more fuel it will need and the fewer
weapons it can carry. Shortening the distance adds
firepower, and enhances the chances for a successful strike.
"The problem is the F-15s," Gardiner said, "who would go in
as fighters to protect the F-16 bombers and stay over the
target." In the likely event that Iran scrambled its
fighters to intercept the Israeli jets, he continued, the
F-15s would be used to engage them. "Those F-15s would burn
up fuel over the target, and would need to land."
Could they land in Azerbaijan? "Well, it would have to be
low profile, because of political sensitivities, so that
means it would have to be outside of Baku and it would have
to be highly developed." Azerbaijan has such a place: the Sitalcay airstrip, which is located
just over 40 miles northwest of Baku and 340 miles from the
Iranian border. Prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union,
Sitalcay's two tarmacs and the adjacent facilities were used
by a squadron of Soviet Sukhoi SU-25 jets -- perfect for
Israeli fighters and bombers. "Well then," Gardiner said,
after the site was described to him, "that would be the
place."
Even if Israeli jets did not land in Azerbaijan, access to
Azeri airfields holds a number of advantages for the Israel
Defense Forces. The airfields not only have facilities to
service fighter-bombers, but a senior U.S. military
intelligence officer said that Israel would likely base
helicopter rescue units there in the days just prior to a
strike for possible search and rescue missions.
This officer pointed to a July 2010 joint Israeli-Romanian exercise that
tested Israeli air capabilities in mountainous areas -- like
those the Israeli Air Force would face during a bombing
mission against Iranian nuclear facilities that the Iranians
have buried deep into mountainsides. U.S. military officers
watched the exercises closely, not least because they
objected to the large number of Israeli fighters operating
from airbases of a NATO-member country, but also because 100
Israeli fighters overflew Greece as a part of a simulation
of an attack on Iran. The Israelis eventually curtailed
their Romanian military activities when the United States
expressed discomfort with practicing the bombing of Iran
from a NATO country, according to this senior military
intelligence officer.
This same senior U.S. military intelligence officer
speculated that the search and rescue component of those
operations will be transferred to Azerbaijan -- "if they
haven't been already." He added that Israel could also use
Azerbaijan as a base for Israeli drones, either as part of a
follow-on attack against Iran, or to mount aerial assessment
missions in an attack's aftermath.
Azerbaijan clearly profits from its deepening relationship
with Israel. The Jewish state is the second largest customer
for Azeri oil - shipped through the Baku-Tibilisi-Ceyhan
pipeline -- and its military trade allows Azerbaijan to
upgrade its military after the Organization for Cooperation
and Security in Europe (OSCE) slapped it with an arms
embargo after its six-year undeclared war with Armenia over
the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. Finally, modernizing
the Azeri military sends a clear signal to Iran that
interference in Azerbaijan could be costly.
"Azerbaijan has worries of its own," said Alexander
Murinson, an Israeli-American scholar who wrote in an influential monograph on
Israeli-Azeri ties for Tel Aviv's Begin-Sadat Center for
Strategic Studies. "The Baku government has expelled
Iranians preaching in their mosques, broken up pro-Iranian
terrorist groups, and countered Iranian propaganda efforts
among its population."
The deepening Azeri-Israeli relationship has also escalated
Israel's dispute with Turkey, which began when Israeli
commandos boarded a Turkish ship destined for Gaza in May
2010, killing nine Turkish citizens. When Turkey demanded an
apology, Israel not only refused, it abruptly canceled a
$150 million contract to develop and manufacture drones with
the Turkish military -- then entered negotiations with Azerbaijan
to jointly manufacture 60 Israeli drones of varying types.
The $1.6 billion arms agreement between Israel and
Azerbaijan also left Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan "sputtering in rage," according to a retired U.S.
diplomat.
The centerpiece of the recent arms deal is Azerbaijan's
acquisition of Israeli drones, which has only heightened
Turkish anxieties further. In November 2011, the Turkish
government retrieved the wreckage of an Israeli "Heron"
drone in the Mediterranean, south of the city of Adana --
well inside its maritime borders. Erdogan's government
believed the drone's flight had originated in the Kurdish
areas of northern Iraq and demanded that Israel provide an
explanation, but got none. "They lied; they told us the
drone didn't belong to them," a former Turkish official told
me last month. "But it had their markings."
Israel began cultivating strong relations with Baku in
1994, when Israeli telecommunications firm Bezeq bought a
large share of the nationally controlled telephone operating
system. By 1995, Azerbaijan's marketplace was awash with
Israeli goods: "Strauss ice cream, cell phones produced by
Motorola's Israeli division, Maccabee beer, and other
Israeli imports are ubiquitous," an Israeli reporter wrote in the Jerusalem Post.
In March 1996, then-Health Minister Ephraim Sneh became the
first senior Israeli official to visit Baku -- but not the
last. Benjamin Netanyahu made the trip in 1997, a high-level
Knesset delegation in 1998, Deputy Prime Minister Avigdor
Lieberman and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni in 2007, Israeli
President Shimon Peres in 2009, and Lieberman again, as
foreign minister, this last February. Accompanying Peres on
his visit to Baku was Avi Leumi, the CEO of Israel's Aeronautics
Defense Systems and a former Mossad official who paved the
way for the drone agreement.
U.S. intelligence officials began to take Israel's
courtship of Azerbaijan seriously in 2001, one of the senior
U.S. military intelligence officers said. In 2001, Israeli
arms manufacturer Elbit Systems contracted with Georgia's
Tbilisi Aerospace Manufacturing to upgrade the Soviet SU-25
Scorpion, a close air-support fighter, and one of its first
customers was Azerbaijan. More recently, Israel's Elta
Systems has cooperated with Azerbaijan in building the
TecSar reconnaissance satellite system and, in 2009, the two
countries began negotiations over Azeri production of the
Namer infantry fighting vehicle.
Israeli firms "built and guard the fence around Baku's
international airport, monitor and help protect Azerbaijan's
energy infrastructure, and even provide security for
Azerbaijan's president on foreign visits," according to a study published by Ilya Bourtman in
the Middle East Journal. Bourtman noted that
Azerbaijan shares intelligence data on Iran with Israel,
while Murinson raised the possibility that Israelis
have set up electronic listening stations along Azerbaijan's
Iranian border.
Israeli officials downplay their military cooperation with
Baku, pointing out that Azerbaijan is one of the few Muslim
nations that makes Israelis feel welcome. "I think that in
the Caucasian region, Azerbaijan is an icon of progress and
modernity," Sneh told an Azeri magazine in July 2010.
Many would beg to differ with that description. Sneh's
claim "is laughable," the retired American diplomat said.
"Azerbaijan is a thuggish family-run kleptocracy and one of
the most corrupt regimes in the world." The U.S. embassy in
Baku has also been scathing: A 2009 State Department cable
described Aliyev, the son of the country's longtime ruler
and former KGB general Heydar Aliyev, as a "mafia-like"
figure, comparable to "Godfather" characters Sonny and
Michael Corleone. On domestic issues in particular, the
cable warned that Aliyev's policies had become "increasingly
authoritarian and hostile to diversity of political views."
But the U.S. military is less concerned with Israel's
business interests in Baku, which are well-known, than it is
with how and if Israel will employ its influence in
Azerbaijan, should its leaders decide to strike Iran's
nuclear facilities. The cable goes on to confirm that Israel
is focused on Azerbaijan as a military ally -- "Israel's
main goal is to preserve Azerbaijan as an ally against Iran,
a platform for reconnaissance of that country and as a
market for military hardware."
It is precisely what is not known about the relationship
that keeps U.S. military planners up at night. One former
CIA analyst doubted that Israel will launch an attack from
Azerbaijan, describing it as "just too chancy, politically."
However, he didn't rule out Israel's use of Azeri airfields
to mount what he calls "follow-on or recovery operations."
He then added: "Of course, if they do that, it widens the
conflict, and complicates it. It's extremely dangerous."
One of the senior U.S. military officers familiar with U.S.
war plans is not as circumspect. "We are studying every
option, every variable, and every factor in a possible
Israeli strike," he told me. Does that include Israel's use
of Azerbaijan as a platform from which to launch a strike --
or to recover Israeli aircraft following one? There was only
a moment's hesitation. "I think I've answered the question,"
he said.
