The animosity of much of the current political elite of the Islamic Republic of Iran towards Azerbaijan and Turkey is sometimes difficult to explain in rational terms. Just as it is difficult to explain the fact that Tehran is prepared to fight for the interests of Armenian revanchists and "Artsakh" separatists. But if we take into consideration peculiarity of the political system of Islamic Republic of Iran and hypertrophied role of Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), everything amply changes.

The IRGC and its "supervising" ayatollahs in Ghoum and Tehran need a new war or a threat of war. The IRGC, together with Armenian nationalists, maniacally seeks to foment war in the South Caucasus, in particular in Zangezur, for the "corporate" interests of both its structure and some of the Iranian high clergy.

The Ayatollah regime is enslaving the masses of Iran through the threat of war and militarization of consciousness. Even if this war is fought for the interests of rabid Islamophobes (Armenia) against Muslims, neither the high clergy of the Islamic Republic of Iran nor the IRGC is at all embarrassed by it. Just as the IRGC is not embarrassed by the fact that it kills Muslims in Syria and Iraq who "disagree" with the policies of Tehran and its allies.

Recently, Russian blogger Anatoly Nesmiyan published an article entitled "The internal conflict" (https://telegra.ph/Vnutrennij-konflikt-07-07 ) dedicated to the phenomenon of armed formations that have an impact on public policy (including PMCs). There he gave a fairly accurate description of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), calling it an "illegal armed group" (which, in principle, corresponds to reality):

"An example of the institutionalisation of illegal armed groups is the Iranian IRGC. It too was created as a counterweight to the army, whose loyalty after the revolution was not obvious to the ayatollahs. During the Iran-Iraq war the generals did their best to eliminate these clerical armed groups, but they survived two parallel wars - with an external enemy and an internal one, gained weight and, under Ahmadinejad, managed to defeat the army apparatus, taking control of the oil industry in order to "black market" it to bypass the sanctions. The IRGC, having gained resources, has virtually taken over the army, but in the course of that struggle it has become such a huge and internally conflicted structure that it can exist solely as an instrument of external aggression. Therefore, the current Iran is the aggressor in a pure form and as long as the IRGC exists, it will remain so to the end. - Anatoly Nesmiyan writes.

Recalling the recent "rattling of arms" by IRGC near Azerbaijan's borders, we have to state that this structure does everything for Tehran's policy towards its neighbours to be aggressive, and drags the Islamic republic into an unnatural alliance with the anti-Islamic regime in Yerevan.

Yet, of course, there are also those who "justify" Iran's aggression and "dragging" it into a possible war in the South Caucasus with the alleged "national interest of Iran" by resorting to aggressive Turkophobia. The Iranian political scientist Ehsan Movahedian stands out among them.  

In a recent TV interview, Ehsan Movahedian claimed that Iran had begun to lose influence in Central Asia, which had supposedly "always been an Iranian and not a Turkish sphere of influence". Samarkand and Bukhara, he said, should be influenced by Iranian culture rather than being part of the Turkic world, as he said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan seeks to do. But at present Israel and the US are investing more in Central Asia. In such a way Movahedian reacted to Erdogan's words about Iran's obstacles to opening of Zangezur corridor and once again accused Azerbaijan of wanting to occupy the southern part of Armenia, for which the Zangezur corridor is allegedly to be created and cut Iran from Armenian border (Movahedian said this on his Twitter account).

To remind, Zangezur corridor is a project of a transport corridor, some 40 km long. This route is planned to be realized with the purpose of establishing transport communication between western regions of Azerbaijan and Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic of Azerbaijan. This would create a direct land route from Turkey to Azerbaijan, and from there access through the Caspian to Central Asia and China. This route does not represent any "hostility" to Iran, rather on the contrary - it provides more opportunities for Iranian transit through the North-South corridor, as it is through the Nakhichevan and Zangezur railway that Iran can connect with the Russian railways.

But according to Movahedian, Iran fears the opening of the Zangezur corridor, as it means "the exclusion of Iran from the political geography of the Caucasus. Iranian news website Farda News also wrote about it.  The publication notes: "The annexation of this province to the Baku Republic would mean the complete elimination of the land border between Iran and Armenia."

Previously, in April 2023, Ehsan Movahedian explicitly said that Iran was ready to engage in a military confrontation with any country "to protect the border with Armenia". When asked "Why is the border with Armenia so important to Iran? What is Iran prepared to do to secure it?" Ehsan Movahedian answered the following:

"The border with Armenia is very important for Iran. In one of my television programmes I said that even if the Armenian government would not give due importance to its border with Iran, the IRI is absolutely ready to engage in a military confrontation with any country to protect this border.  The reason for this is obvious: if this border is eliminated, Iran will be surrounded by Turkic countries... 

...Armenia can conclude military and defence contracts with Iran, can expand military cooperation, send its soldiers for training in Iran, create conditions for a greater economic presence of Iran in the south, etc. The more Iranians there are in the south of Armenia, the harder it will be to attack that territory and separate it...".

It seems more likely that Iran, represented by the IRGC, is itself going to occupy and enslave Armenia. It looks like Armenia will be the first country to be completely overrun by the IRGC, taking all of Armenia and its resources.  The IRGC corporation is now becoming a significant factor hindering peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan and the unblocking of communications.

Alexander Zakhariadze