Azerbaijan - Torn Between Iran-Guided Shi'ism & The Kemalist Model.

Azerbaijan has the distinction of having been the first Muslim democracy in the world in 1919-20 when it was, fleetingly, independent. That past is unlikely to come to life again in the foreseeable future. Opposition activists note that the Azeri regime's policies are more liable to pave the way for Shi'ite Islamist fundamentalism, rather than a return of democracy. They say Azerbaijan's political freedoms have declined in an inverse ratio with the oil proceeds (see omt1AzerProspJuly1-08). But other opponents of the regime say President Ilham Aliyev is steering Azerbaijan to a Kemalist model with his father, the late Heidar Aliyev, having called himself the father of the Azeri nation.

Iranian-guided imams in Shi'ite mosques of rural Azerbaijan are actively trying to turn the faithful into a constituency for Tehran's theocracy. In Nardaran, a village 45 km from Baku, the capital's boulevards crammed with boutiques give way to a labyrinth of winding, dusty streets. Instead of billboards advertising Gucci fashions or SUVs, there are political slogans daubed in paint on the village's sandstone walls, some praising Ayatullah Khomeini, others proclaiming "Death To America and Israel".

In the local mosque, an imam from Iran preaches. The men sit cross-legged and listen, the wind whipping through a tarpaulin separating the men's side from the women's. The imam says: "Azerbaijan and Iran have been brothers for ages. They are sisters, they are one house. They have the same blood, same language, same faith. There is no difference between them". Iran and Azerbaijan both have majority Shi'ite populations, and at least 25% of Iran's population is ethnic Azeri.

Cultural and ethnic similarities aside, however, there is much which divides the two countries. One is a largely secular, post-Soviet state eager to use its energy wealth to secure powerful friends in the West and the East. The other is a repressive Shi'ite theocracy whose nuclear and regional ambitions have left it isolated from the West.

Still, the relationship between Baku and Tehran is considered a critical linchpin in the vital and volatile Caspian region. Links between the two have come under the spotlight in recent weeks, with the trial and ultimate conviction of 15 Azeri men found guilty of passing information on Western embassies and companies operating in Azerbaijan to Iranian intelligence. The closed-door trial, which opened in Baku in early October 2007, concluded on Dec. 10, with the country's Court for Serious Crimes convicting the defendants on charges of treason and sedition.

The defendants, all members of Nima, a small Shi'ite group, were found guilty of co-operating with Iranian special services in plotting a coup against the Aliyev regime. The group's leader, a young cleric who denied any ties to Iranian intelligence, received 14 years in prison. Iran expressed deep anger over the verdict and the accusations, by extension, that it sought to destabilise the Aliyev regime.

Officials in Tehran summoned Azerbaijan's ambassador to the Foreign Ministry and called the court proceedings a "comedy". But in Baku, the verdict is a serious reflection of official worries about the encroachment of Iran's political brand of Shi'ism. Officially secular Azerbaijan has seen a growth in Islamic faith since the break-up of the Soviet Union, fuelled by money and missionaries sent by foreign groups. In the early 1990s, it was common for Iranian imams to be preaching in Azerbaijani mosques.

Azeri authorities have since sought to rein that in, tightening controls on religious education. But Yadigar Sadigov, the local head of the opposition Musavat party in the south-eastern town of Lankaran close to the Iranian border, says Iran's radical version of Shi'ism was still making inroads into religious life in the town. Iran broadcasts Azeri-language religious programmes into Azerbaijan; Lankaran bookshops are full of ideological works from Iran. Qom-based Grand Ayatullah Abolfazl Lankarani, who died in 2007, was one of the highest religious authorities in the Shi'ite world; some members of his clan, originating from Lankaran, are key figures in Iran's theocracy.

Sadigov says: "The propaganda promotes the Islamic regime in Iran and says that our secular system is not good". Like Sadigov, members of Aliyev's regime privately accuse Tehran of seeking to annex Azerbaijan to theocratic Iran in its efforts to revive the Turko-Persian empire which the Safawid dynasty established in the GME five centuries ago (see rim6-IraqSadrVsHakim-Shi'iteHistoryJun11-08).

Relations between Baku and Tehran are worsening. Apart from religious and geo-political considerations, their economic rivalry is growing as Azerbaijan is emerging as a petro-power in the Caspian region and a trading partner of the West. Steve LeVine, a former "Wall Street Journal" correspondent and the author of a recent book on Caspian oil, says: "Iran is putting its oil on the Gulf and Azerbaijan is putting its oil onto the Mediterranean and they're headed for the same market".

Underscoring the economic rivalry is the ongoing dispute over the delimitation of the Caspian Sea. The dispute centres on whether the Caspian is classified as a sea or a lake, which affects the littoral states' claims on its resources. Russia, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan have all signed bilateral agreements about their sectors; but Iran still insists on a multi-lateral agreement among all five states, including Turkmenistan.

Russia and Iran are allies in the strategy of thwarting a Caspian resolution in order to stop any trans-Caspian pipeline, in particular a pipeline proposed to carry crude oil from Central Asia to the Mediterranean, via Azerbaijan (see the background in down1AzerCasp-July1-08).

The rivalry between Azerbaijan and Iran is increasingly being sharpened by an anti-Western axis of Russia, Armenia, and Iran. Federico Bordonaro, a Rome-based senior analyst with the "Power and Interest News Report", says that a Russian-Armenian-Iranian strategic partnership is very profitable for Russia if Moscow is to check US and NATO penetration in the Southern Caucasus. Such an axis, he says, also works for Iran, adding: "Iran does not want a very strong Azerbaijan - first of all, because Azerbaijan is pro-US, and second, because the Azeri minority in Iran must be checked by the Tehran central government".

The alliance between Muslim Iran and Orthodox Armenia and Russia - at the expense of predominantly Muslim Azerbaijan - is testament to how geo-strategic and economic interests tend to over-ride religious or cultural ties in the region. What is not clear is whether Azerbaijan's and Iran's economic rivalry will be characterised more in the future by accusations of skullduggery and worsening relations.

In the past, Azerbaijan has tried to play a skillful balancing act between Moscow, Washington, and Tehran, and has been careful to maintain friendly relations with its large southern neighbour. Baku faced a profound diplomatic challenge in 2007 when Russia offered an Azerbaijani radar base to the US for use in an anti-missile programme aimed squarely at Iran. But the potentially divisive proposal appears to have stirred only minor ripples. Presidents Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad and Aliyev pledged continued co-operation at friendly talks in Azerbaijan in August 2007, just weeks before US and Russian officials were scheduled to inspect the radar facility in Qabala.

More troublesome is the question of Iranian meddling in Azerbaijan's state security. There are other Iran-guided militant groups at large. Vafa Guluzade, a former adviser to late Azeri President Heydar Aliyev, says he is 100% convinced that Iran has a good intelligence network operating in Azerbaijan. He says: "This network can work to destabilise the situation: explosions, suicide bombers, I don't know, everything could be here".

Equally worrying for the Baku authorities is popular sympathy for the Iranian theocracy. In towns close to the Iranian border other than Lankaran, there is a large population of Talysh who are linguistically and ethnically similar to the Persians. Many locals regularly travel across the border to visit their ethnic Azeri relatives in northern Iran and sell food and clothes. There is also growing disenchantment in Azerbaijan with the Aliyev regime, which is viewed by many as deeply corrupt and anti-democratic. Sadigov, the opposition party head in Lankoran, says that dissatisfaction at home could easily create ears receptive to Iranian propaganda, noting: "In the first years of independence, people supported the secular system, democracy, but the government didn't keep its promise. They are not optimistic about democracy and the secular system - and then people will orientate themselves to the Iranian side".