Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev threatened that “Our Armed Forces have been instructed to prepare and implement retaliatory measures” after alleged Iranian drones attacked the airport of his country’s Nakhchivan exclave. He also claimed that “the independent state of Azerbaijan today is also a place of hope for many Azerbaijanis living in Iran”, where more Azeris live than in Azerbaijan itself. If Azerbaijan enters the Third Gulf War, its mutual defense ally Turkiye might follow, which could drag in all of NATO.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told his Azerbaijani counterpart that Israel was actually responsible as part of a plot to “disrupt relations between Muslim countries”, which was echoed by the Iranian Ambassador to Russia. Iran previously claimed that other attacks attributed to it throughout the region were also actually carried out by Israel as part of the same false flag scheme. For as believable as that might sound to some, the Omani precedent suggests that part of the IRGC “mosaic” is to blame.
“Mosaic” refers to what Araghchi earlier described as his country’s “Decentralized Mosaic Defense”, which CNN defined as “cells of military units operating under a decentralized system to conduct clandestine drone and missile launches”. Araghchi then shortly thereafter suggested that this “mosaic” was responsible for attacks against Oman, claiming that “What happened in Oman was not our choice. We have already told our Armed Forces to be careful about the targets they choose.”
He added that “Our military units are now, in fact, independent and somewhat isolated, and they are acting based on general instructions given to them in advance.” The innuendo was that one of these decentralized cells decided on its own to attack Oman, likely on the basis of the US military infrastructure there playing a role in the US’ attacks on Iran, which Iran has used as a justification for attacks against other regional countries. This precedent challenges his claims of an Israeli false flag in Nakhchivan.
To be clear, the Iranian state itself has no reason to attack Azerbaijan, even if only as part of a plot to then blame it on an Israeli false flag. Iran doesn’t want Azerbaijan to join the war as the tripwire for Turkiye and possibly the rest of NATO following suit. Some members of the IRGC, however, are thought to hate Azerbaijan. As nationalists, they consider it part of Iran’s historical territory, while their shared Shiite faith but polar opposite relations with Israel makes them see it as a traitor to their religion.
Coupled with several periods of serious bilateral tensions since Azerbaijan’s restoration of independence in 1991, all these factors combine to create the credible scenario of at least one cell of the IRGC “mosaic” deciding to use the conflict as cover for carrying out revenge against Azerbaijan and then blaming Israel. This possibility cannot be discounted after Araghchi’s admission that part of the “mosaic” was responsible for attacks on Oman even if one still lends credence to the Israeli false flag hypothesis.
It’s ultimately up to Azerbaijan what form its threatened retaliation will take. While the prospect of taking over what its nationalists consider to be “South Azerbaijan” might be tempting given how much the war has already weakened Iran, initiating its “Balkanization” through these means could unleash unforeseen consequences. It might therefore be better for Azerbaijan to eschew kinetic retaliation entirely to avoid the risk of a spiraling tit-for-tat or only shoot a few missiles back at Iran and call it even.
