The United States should call out Azerbaijani aggression against Armenia to end the ongoing cycle of aggression, Michael Rubin, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, said in an article published on 19FortyFive on Sunday.
Rubin wrote the article after Azerbaijan's latest attack against Armenia proper at the point where Armenia is most narrow.
"While the Biden administration mantra is “diplomacy is back,” its inept diplomacy has poured fuel on the fire. The problem is a tendency to moral equivalence and false balance. Armenians and the Armenian Diaspora celebrated when the Biden administration formally recognized the Armenian Genocide. Two days, however, and without any forewarning to senators and representatives, Secretary of State Antony Blinken waived Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act. The waiver required that Blinken certify that the Azerbaijani government remained committed to settling its disputes with Armenia through diplomacy rather than military force. Azerbaijani dictator Ilham Aliyev, however, made clear that he viewed diplomacy with disdain. Not only did he humiliate the U.S. co-chair of the Minsk Group charged with brokering diplomacy, but he also repeatedly made territorial claims on Armenia proper. To waive Section 907 and allow aid to Azerbaijan was not only illegal under U.S. law, but also signaled to Aliyev that he could literally get away with murder," the scholar said.
"Diplomacy will never constrain dictators if they believe they face no consequence for their failure to abide by it. Parts of the border may be murky, but the Azerbaijani assault was into territory that was not under any credible dispute. Unless Blinken calls out Azerbaijani aggression, revokes the Section 907 waiver, and slaps Global Magnitsky Act sanctions on Aliyev and his top family members for their corruption, cultural desecration, and human rights violations, then Aliyev will only repeat the cycle of aggression. This would not only destabilize Armenia, put its people at risk for further genocide, and undermine its turn toward democracy, but it would also provide Russia an excuse to cement its grip over the region."
