‘Baku granted Israel access to airbases for Iran strike’

Now, why would a senior US official broadcast a thing like that which should not be trumpeted about? I can’t think of a single reason, except that the US administration is running interference for the Iranian nuclear program, protecting it from Israel, as it has been all along. And indeed, the “Obama administration reportedly unhappy about J’lem-Baku relationship.” Why? Because it means Israel is unwilling to entrust its survival to Obama? Or because it endangers the Iranian race to nuclear capability? And is there a difference? Jack Golbert

By JPOST.COM STAFF

‘Foreign Policy’ article quotes senior US officials as saying “the Israelis have bought an airfield and the airfield is called Azerbaijan”; Obama administration reportedly unhappy about J’lem-Baku relationship.

Azerbaijan has granted Israel access to airbases in its territory along Iran’s northern border for potential use in a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities, a report published Wednesday in Foreign Policy magazine quoted senior US administration officials as saying.

“The Israelis have bought an airfield,” an official said, “and the airfield is called Azerbaijan.”

Even if Israel doesn’t use the fields for a direct airstrike on Iran, Azerbaijan could still prove useful for Jerusalem’s interests in the region. The bases could be used as a jumping point for IDF search-and-rescue units, the report quoted a US intelligence official as saying.

According to the Foreign Policy report, the Obama administration believes the Jerusalem-Baku relationship is raising the risk of an Israeli strike on Iran. Senior US officials have said that Israel’s military expansion into Azerbaijan is complicating US efforts to defuse Israeli-Iranian tensions. “We’re watching what Israel is doing in Azerbaijan. And we’re not happy about it,” one official said.

This relationship between Israel and the predominantly Muslim country sitting on Iran’s northern border is believed to be robust. The Foreign Policy report quoted a 1995 article in The Jerusalem Post as saying that bilateral relations started in 1994 and had blossomed ever since. “Strauss ice cream, cell phones produced by Motorola’s Israeli division, Maccabee beer, and other Israeli imports are ubiquitous [in Azerbaijan],” the Jerusalem Post article stated.

The unlikely bilateral relationship has taken center stage in the media this year.

In January, Azeri authorities implicated an Iranian citizen in a plot to kill Jewish teachers at a Jewish school in Baku.
A report published last month in The Times of London stated that Azerbaijan is teeming with Mossad agents working to collect intelligence on the Islamic Republic of Iran, quoting an unnamed agent as saying that Baku was “ground zero for intelligence work.”

Later in the month, Israeli officials confirmed a $1.6 billion defense deal with Baku that will see Jerusalem supplying the formerly soviet country with unmanned aerial vehicles and missile defense systems.

Earlier this month, Azerbaijani police arrested 22 people, including one Iranian citizen, suspected of plotting attacks against US and Israeli targets across the country. Baku tied the plot to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC).

March 29, 2012 | 10 Comments »
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  1. Funny that we don’t hear anymore from the resident Ovomit stooge Catamarin, and even Yamit is either more subdued or like today, running crazy about all things NOT pointing the finger at Ovomit and his anti-Jew crew.

    BUT this, coupled with K-E-Y-S-T-O-N-E, the Trayvon Martin remarks, the capitulation to Russia per monkey ass remarks on the open mic, (which by the way is still arming Iran while that little piece of sh*t wants to give up what is left of our missile defenses to them), and the Supreme Court reminding us what Ovomitcare really is are just more reasons why America needs, no, make that had better change house come November.

    Get rid of the anti-America, anti-Semitic, anti-Christian bastard before he gets rid of us – and allows Israel to go up in a Mushroom cloud.

  2. According to a war simulation conducted by the U.S. Central Command, the Iranians could kill 200 Americans with a single missile response to an Israeli attack. An investigative committee would not spare any admiral or general, minister or president. The meaning of this U.S. scenario is that the blood of these 200 would be on Israel’s hands.

    Sorry, warmongers, do it and see what the reaction of America will be. Time to cut the cord with the entity.

  3. @ Laura:
    Our illigitimate president is not interested in protecting the interests of America. His main concern is to insure that the Taliban and al-Queada emerge victorious. This Manchurean candidate has been clandestinely installed into his present position by leftist, Marxist one world Islamic plotters whose aim is to destroy America, Israel and the whole of the western world. While we all sleep he is succeeding. He is being assisted by the powerful Jewish,liberal, leftist lobby both in Israel and the U.S. Supporting this nefarious plot is George Soros and the Bildenbergers. Wake up world.

  5. Israel relations with Azerbaijan

    Azeris get Israel UAVs built under license

    Azerbaijan, which lies in the energy-rich Caspian Basin, has oil reserves of more than 1.2 billion barrels as well as 4.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. It is one of Israel’s largest suppliers of crude oil.

    “The $1.6 billion arms agreement between Israel and Azerbaijan also left Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan “sputtering in rage,” according to a retired U.S. diplomat”.

    “Israel began cultivating strong relations with Baku in 1994, when Israeli telecommunications firm Bezeq bought a large share of the nationally controlled telephone operating system. By 1995, Azerbaijan’s marketplace was awash with Israeli goods: “Strauss ice cream, cell phones produced by Motorola’s Israeli division, Maccabee beer, and other Israeli imports are ubiquitous,” an Israeli reporter wrote in the Jerusalem Post.”

    “U.S. intelligence officials began to take Israel’s courtship of Azerbaijan seriously in 2001, one of the senior U.S. military intelligence officers said. In 2001, Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems contracted with Georgia’s Tbilisi Aerospace Manufacturing to upgrade the Soviet SU-25 Scorpion, a close air-support fighter, and one of its first customers was Azerbaijan. More recently, Israel’s Elta Systems has cooperated with Azerbaijan in building the TecSar reconnaissance satellite system and, in 2009, the two countries began negotiations over Azeri production of the Namer infantry fighting vehicle”.

    Israeli firms “built and guard the fence around Baku’s international airport, monitor and help protect Azerbaijan’s energy infrastructure, and even provide security for Azerbaijan’s president on foreign visits,” according to a study published by Ilya Bourtman in the Middle East Journal. Bourtman noted that Azerbaijan shares intelligence data on Iran with Israel, while Murinson raised the possibility that Israelis have set up electronic listening stations along Azerbaijan’s Iranian border.

  6. Israel’s Secret Staging Ground FP
    U.S. officials believe that the Israelis have gained access to airbases in Azerbaijan. Does this bring them one step closer to a war with Iran?
    BY MARK PERRY | MARCH 28, 2012

    The Azeri military has four abandoned, Soviet-era airfields that would potentially be available to the Israelis, as well as four airbases for their own aircraft, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ Military Balance 2011.

    December 2006, when retired Israeli Brig. Gen. Oded Tira angrily denounced the George W. Bush administration’s lack of action on the Iranian nuclear program. “For our part,” he wrote in a widely cited commentary, “we should also coordinate with Azerbaijan the use of airbases in its territory and also enlist the support of the Azeri minority in Iran.” The “coordination” that Tira spoke of is now a reality, the U.S. sources told me.


    Access to such airfields is important for Israel, because it would mean that Israeli F-15I and F-16I fighter-bombers would not have to refuel midflight during a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, but could simply continue north and land in Azerbaijan.     Defense analyst David Isenberg describes the ability to use Azeri airfields as “a significant asset” to any Israel strike, calculating that the 2,200-mile trip from Israel to Iran and back again would stretch Israel’s warplanes to their limits. “Even if they added extra fuel tanks, they’d be running on fumes,” Isenberg told me, “so being allowed access to Azeri airfields would be crucial.”

    Former CENTCOM commander Gen. Joe Hoar simplified Israel’s calculations: “They save themselves 800 miles of fuel,

  7. We have a subversive administration in the White House acting to protect an enemy from our ally. Should Israel decide to launch a preemptive strike on Iran, it is imperative that they do not let the Obama administration know in advance. They will tip off Iran.