Caspian Watch #4: House-Senate Conference Must Strike Proper Balance For American Interests
(Washington, D.C.): A House-Senate
conference on the FY97 Foreign Operations
Appropriations Bill is poised to deal yet
another potentially devastating blow to
U.S. strategic and investment interests
in the vitally important Caspian Sea
region. The delivery vehicle for this
prospective foreign policy setback is a
provision contained in the House bill
known as the Porter Amendment, for its
original sponsor, Rep. John Porter
(R-IL). It should be rejected by the
conferees in favor a more balanced
approach to American equities in the
region.
An Anti-Humanitarian
Initiative Begets a Strategic Fiasco
The Porter Amendment would exacerbate
the misplaced priorities of present U.S.
policy toward the Caspian Sea basin.
These are largely governed by Section 907
of the Freedom Support Act of 1992 — an
outdated and counterproductive provision
which precludes any direct U.S.
government humanitarian or other
assistance to the former Soviet Republic
of Azerbaijan.
The circumstances that gave rise to
Section 907 have changed dramatically,
however. Today, hostilities between
Armenia and Azerbaijan have largely
subsided, and the flow of goods into
Armenia is virtually unimpeded. In fact, Armenia
is now occupying some 20% of Azerbaijani
territory, thanks in part
to continuing Russian military
assistance.
The actual effect of the
continued application of Section 907
— as noted by, among others, U.S.
Ambassador to Azerbaijan Richard
Kauzlarich — is to deprive
almost one million refugees from the
conflict living in Azerbaijan any
direct U.S. government assistance
whatsoever. While the United
States is prepared to grant humanitarian
relief funds to pariah states like North
Korea and Iraq, it remains indifferent to
the plight of hundreds of thousands of
women and children in Azerbaijan.
Porter Would Make Matters
Worse
The Porter Amendment would open the
possibility of direct U.S. assistance to
the Azerbaijani government — but only in
a defined ratio to that dispersed to
Nagorno-Karabakh. International aid
officials point out that such a ratio is
unprecedented, unworkable as a practical
matter and highly undesirable. In
addition, this amendment’s implicit
recognition of a distinction between
Azerbaijan proper and Nagorno-Karabakh —
an area still recognized by the Unites
States government and the international
community as Azerbaijani territory — is
a key objective of an Armenia anxious to
consolidate and legitimate its wartime
gains.
Time to Reorder American
Priorities
The possibility that the United States
might actually further enhance ties with
Armenia at the expense of relations with
Azerbaijan is all the more bizarre in
light of the following partial listing of
Armenian foreign policy initiatives to
which the United States should be
adamantly opposed:
- Armenia has signed a
twenty five-year military basing
agreement with Russia and has
effectively ceded control of its
borders to Russian forces. - Armenia has emerged as a
transshipment route for military
hardware and possibly nuclear and
other proscribed materials from
Russia to Iran. - The Armenian-American
lobby, by demanding continued,
onerous prohibitions on official
U.S. relations with Azerbaijan,
is poisoning the otherwise
promising business environment
for American firms that are,
arguably, losing billions of
dollars in investment
opportunities to foreign
competitors supported by their
respective governments.
By contrast, Azerbaijan — a nation
that is becoming the nexus for the
development and extraction of a great
deal of the approximately 200 billion
barrels of oil in the Caspian Sea region
(a quantity larger than the combined
reserves of the North Sea and the North
Slope of Alaska) — is trying to help
advance important U.S. foreign
policy goals. For example:
- Azerbaijan is a secular,
Western-oriented Muslim state
serving as a bulwark against
Iranian fundamentalist and
Russian imperialist predations in
the region. - In the face of intense pressure
from Moscow, Baku refuses to
station Russian troops on its
territory. - Azerbaijan is offering U.S.
energy and other corporations
access to significant investment
opportunities. - Access to these tremendous
hydrocarbon reserves will
diversify world energy resources
and allow a reduction in the
West’s present, ominous
over-reliance on the volatile
Persian Gulf.
Will Congress Make Matters Worse?
Not satisfied with the harmful,
cumulative effect of Section 907 and the
Porter Amendment to U.S. ties with
Azerbaijan, the well-funded and
politically powerful Armenian-American
lobby (see, for example, the
Post editorial of 1 August 1996)(1)
has been working assiduously to increase
the level of U.S. assistance to Armenia
to $95 million in FY97. In per
capita terms, such a level would leave
Armenia second only to Israel as a
recipient of U.S. foreign aid.
As a modest sop to
Azerbaijan in the face of such an
unwarranted increase in U.S. taxpayer
assistance to its regional competitor,
the conferees are reportedly considering
the deletion of Porter language which
referred to Nagorno-Karabakh as a
separate political entity from
Azerbaijan. While welcome, this
corrective action clearly does not go far
enough.
The Bottom Line
The Armenian-American lobby’s success
to date in engineering congressional
impediments to close U.S. ties with
pro-Western Islamic nations like Turkey
and Azerbaijan in order to advance
Armenia’s agenda has been due to a
substantial degree to the stealthy manner
in which this lobby has operated. In the
worst tradition of translating financial
contributions into backroom political
demands, the Armenian-Americans have
forced legislators to subordinate the
United States’ national interests to the
perceived priorities of Armenia in the
region and beyond.
Consequently, the Congress must send a
message to this narrowly focussed lobby:
The United States cannot continue to
ignore — or worse yet, estrange —
nations willing and anxious to help
advance American foreign policy and
investment goals. The House-Senate
conference must reject the Porter
amendment in its entirety and maintain
the present levels of humanitarian
assistance to Armenia. For that matter,
the underlying Section 907 should be
overhauled so as to ensure that U.S.
humanitarian assistance would flow to both
parties as warranted by the objective of
permitting the recovery of Armenia and
the necessary relief of a humanitarian
crisis in Azerbaijan and the
consolidation of crucial U.S. strategic
interests in the region.
– 30 –
1. See in addition
the Center’s previous Decision
Briefs entitled Caspian
Watch: Russian Power Plays on ‘Early Oil’
Hallmark of Kremlin Expansionism Past —
and Future? (
2 October 1995), Caspian Watch
#2: The Great Game Is On — Will the
Republicans in Congress Play? (
1 November 1995), Center
Inaugurates William J. Casey Institute
With Symposium on Emerging Crisis in the
Caspian Basin (
March 1996), and Caspian Watch
#3: Center, Washington Post Agree —
Congress Must Do the Right Thing By U.S.
Interests in the Caspian Basin? (
August 1996).
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