Congress Demands Action Against Azerbaijan
Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ) is calling for the protection of the Armenian population living in the Republic of Artsakh.
Earlier today, Smith released a press statement in response to Azerbaijan’s barbaric attack on Artsakh. Smith is a co-chair on the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission which seeks bipartisan solutions to human rights crises.
“Now more than ever, President Biden must immediately push the United Nations Security Council to establish a mandate and peacekeeping mission to protect the Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh.”
Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ)
Smith has hosted two congressional hearings on Azerbaijan’s genocidal intentions towards Artsakh and notes that Azerbaijan’s “democratically-elected” president, Ilham Aliyev, initiated the military assault on Artsakh because Aliyev knew the Biden administration was bluffing when it declared, “[I]t ‘will not tolerate’ an attack.”
In the Senate, the Chairman for the Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), released a statement on X (the re-branded Twitter) that he called Biden’s Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, in the wake of Azerbaijan’s attack.
“We must hold Aliyev accountable & provide immediate support to Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh.”
Supporting Artsakh is a bipartisan concern for those who value human rights.
Unfortunately, there are many politicians and political intellectuals in Europe and the United States who have reaped the benefits of Azerbaijan’s “caviar diplomacy,” or the bribery of influential people in the West to advocate for pro-Azeri policies.
Historical Context
Armenians are one of the oldest civilizations in the world, being referenced both biblically and among political discourse of the ancient world.
Armenians have historically occupied territory from Mount Ararat through the southern Caucasus, though the extent has fluctuated over millennia owing to conquests by one empire or another.
Azeris, by contrast, did not arrive until the middle ages when Turkic tribes descended into Persian territory and intermingled the two ethnic groups which are the major components of the Azeri identity.
Though a version of the word “Azerbaijan” existed within the linguistics of this Turkic-Persian tribe group, the word didn’t take on a politcal/ethnic identity until the Musavat party in the city of Baku decided to usurp control of modern-day Azerbaijan from the back and forth between Russia and Persia.
Until 1918, Armenians and Russians provided the intellectual and industrial might to keep the region around Baku prosperous. The September Days massacre saw Turkish troops support the rising Azeri-nationalist movement to oust control of the region from Russia in favor of the Ottoman Empire.
Thousands of Armenians and other ethnic minorities were slaughtered or forced to flee from their homes and granted control of the region to Azerbaijanis.
Fast-forward past the rise and fall of the Soviet Union, and you arrive at a geo-political cesspit created by the international community for failing to respect the rights of those living in the Republic of Artsakh.
The Armenian community deserved the right to govern themselves, free from Azerbaijanis who, along with their allies in Turkey, sought to commit a total genocide of the Armenian population with a wave of one massacre after another throughout their history.
Azerbaijanis have a difficult time establishing a national identity for themselves because they, like their cousins in Turkey, are not native to the area. They arrived on horseback knowing only war and conquest. They raped, pillaged, slaughtered, and enslaved each indigenous population they encountered and claimed their histories and cultures as their own.
In a modern, civilized world, there is no place for bloodthirsty conquerors, but that is the only culture and vocation that Azerbaijan knows how to conduct.
If the Biden administration and other world leaders fail to take decisive and swift action against the Aliyev regime, then the international community will be complicit in another genocide.
