The situation around the Caspian in the event of a coalition strike on Iran
Let us try to figure out what can happen with the so-called Caspian dispute if Iran is still under attack by the military power of the United States, Israel and other states.
So, first we need to say about Iranian ideas about the division of the wealth of the Caspian Sea, as well as about the division of its waters. So, official Tehran offers other four Caspian states (Russia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan) to solve the problem as follows: just take and share both the subsoil and the waters of the Caspian Sea between all countries equally. It would seem that the proposal is very constructive, and it is strange that it is not supported by other Caspian states ... But if you pay attention to the map of the Caspian region, it becomes clear that Tehran is clearly cunning. The fact is that its coastline is almost 2 times less than the Russian one and 2,3 times less than the Kazakhstan one. But even the length of the coastline is a stumbling block in the issue of the division of Caspian resources. Strongly against the Iranian proposal is Azerbaijan, which borders with Iran. According to Baku, if the Caspian Sea is divided "equally", as proposed by the Tehran authorities, Iran may have claims to own offshore hydrocarbon deposits, which Azerbaijan is now effectively securing. At the same time, Baku cannot agree with Ashkhabad on who has the right to own the Serdar-Kapaz field. Today, even scientists are not exactly able to answer exactly which state is more likely to qualify for these Caspian subsoil. In this regard, the situation is often aggravated to the limit: not so long ago, Azerbaijani border vessels made it clear to the Turkmen research vessel that he had nothing to do at Kapaza ... But if you are guided by Tehran’s thoughts that the Caspian should be divided into five equal parts (like the water area and the bottom), it’s no longer a fact that only Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan will claim Serdar-Kapaz. The official authorities in Baku oppose the Iranian proposal for equal shares when dividing the Caspian Sea.
It turns out that all the Caspian states (from among the former Union Republics) may even benefit from the operation of the coalition forces against the Iranian nuclear facilities ... As they say, one country is less in undiminished dispute over maritime expanses and subsoil. But is this judgment so obvious? ..
On the one hand, it seems, really, while Ahmadinejad tries to oppose something to a possible American-Israeli attack, it is possible to agree on dividing the Caspian Sea in a narrower circle of states. But only at the time of the hypothetical campaign against Iran is unlikely the rest of the littoral states will be exclusively concerned with the problem of the resources of the Caspian Sea. Here you can give an example: five neighbors could not share a common courtyard between themselves, then people came from another courtyard and the house of one neighbor was set on fire ... Of course, at this point you can start delimitation, but in this case it is better to think about how to do so so that the fire does not turn all the buildings surrounding the yard into ashes.
In other words, if aggression against Iran is launched, the region will face a large-scale humanitarian catastrophe with all the ensuing consequences that are unlikely to leave time for Russia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan to discuss who and what proportion in the Caspian Sea will get.
It should be expected that in the direction of the border with Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan there will be floods of refugees from Iran, the number of which is difficult to predict, but that it can amount to hundreds of thousands of people is quite likely. At the same time, the population density in the northwestern part of Iran is greater than in the rest of the country, and therefore Iranian refugees will go in the direction of Azerbaijan, Armenia, and then Georgia and Russia, filling the already troubled Caucasus region.
It turns out that the invasion of the Western coalition into Iran could provoke a new phase of the Caucasian conflict. Obviously, the one who plans to launch an air strike together with the ground operation in Iran clearly scrolls through the option of total destabilization of the Caucasian territories, and destabilization will clearly lead to the need to force and money to the region from the Russian Federation. Even if these forces and means succeed in completely closing the southern border of Russia in Dagestan, it is not a fact that it neutralizes the threat by 100%. Moreover, Armenia, already a member of the CSTO, is in the region. Therefore, any destabilization in this country will a priori push other countries of the Collective Security Treaty Organization to participate in the conflict.
In addition, one should not lose sight of the fact that countries that are preparing to strike at Iran’s nuclear facilities only at nuclear facilities are unlikely to stop. They, as they say, need everything at once: the destruction of nuclear facilities, Iranian oil, Iranian military targets, well, they may well want to give the Caspian a hand too - why refuse what Iran itself claims ...
It turns out that today's Iranian claims for a fifth of the resources of the Caspian Sea are, of course, a problem, but a much bigger problem is that the new forces, instead of the current official authorities of Iran, will dictate their demands in the region. As they say, we do not need such an alignment ...
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