Shia Crescent goes \u201cFull Moon\u201d post-October 7<\/b><\/p>\n
During the Global War on Terror in the early 2000s, King Abdullah II of Jordan coined the term \u201cShia Crescent<\/a>\u201d to describe the Iranian grand strategy of large-scale and wide-ranging ideological armed struggle to create a Shiite empire from Tehran to Damascus. There is no other way to describe his conception except for a self-fulfilling prophecy, one where the Israel-Hamas War has revealed truly how threatening Iran-backed militia groups are to the security and stability of the region.<\/p>\n In the\u00a0Levant<\/a>, Shia-led Hezbollah and to a lesser extent Hamas, a formally Sunni network supported by Tehran, are at war with Israel, executing Tehran\u2019s plan to eliminate the Jewish State. Along the\u00a0Euphrates<\/a>, Shiite groups like Harakat al-Nujaba militia and the al-Sadr Movement have a chokehold on the Iraqi government, making the state a de jure Iranian satellite. And in the\u00a0Gulf<\/a>, the Houthi movement\u2019s piracy and attacks on international shipping vessels have completely destabilized the maritime commerce of the Red Sea such that trade through the\u00a0Suez Canal<\/a>\u00a0has dropped by 50 percent from 2023-2024.<\/p>\n On the Footsteps of the Shia Crescent<\/b><\/p>\n Under a Hashemite monarchy and with a majority-Sunni population, this Crescent is an existential threat to the Kingdom of Jordan. Externally, the country is surrounded by Shia-majority areas in Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq, particularly\u00a0Kata\u2019ib Hezbollah<\/a>\u00a0(KH), which in April announced it is preparing an \u201cIslamic Resistance in Jordan\u201d that is ready to provide \u201c12,000 fighters with light and medium weapons, anti-armor launchers, tactical missiles\u2026 so that [it] can be one hand to defend [their] Palestinian brothers.\u201d If not for using Jordan as a launchpad to attack Israel, KH seeks to threaten the Western-backed monarchy as it did in January\u2019s\u00a0drone strikes<\/a>\u00a0on a U.S. military base in its easternmost territory leaving an American soldier killed, and through periodic cross-border\u00a0smuggling<\/a>\u00a0of arms and narcotics to cells in Amman which increased since October 7th.<\/p>\n The Kingdom felt the size of the threat during Tehran\u2019s unprecedented attack on Israel back in May, when the U.S. along with other Arab partners decided to singularly shoot down missiles to de-escalate tensions. Jordan\u2019s\u00a0involvement<\/a>\u00a0was simply remarkable given its condemnation of Israel\u2019s actions in Gaza, but King Abdullah II reasserted that this decision was a means of stopping Jordan from turning into a \u201cbattleground<\/a>\u201d for the Israel-Iran proxy war. Jordan, with its coldblooded, geostrategic relationship with the Jewish State, will continue to be another \u201csmall Satan<\/a>\u201d in the eye\u2019s of Iran\u2019s \u201cAxis of Resistance\u201d and must be dealt with accordingly.<\/p>\n Azerbaijan, Iran\u2019s northern neighbor, knows all too well how it feels to be called the \u201csecond Israel<\/a>\u201d by the Ayatollahs. For decades, Tehran maintained an adversarial approach to Baku, trying to endanger Azerbaijan\u2019s stability and territorial integrity whenever possible. This was most evident in Iran\u2019s\u00a0strong financial and military support<\/a>\u00a0of Armenia during the Karabakh Conflict, as a counter to\u00a0Israel\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0support of Azerbaijan. Iran continued to provoke Azerbaijan for strategic relations with its sworn enemy, such as the 2023 Azerbaijani Embassy\u00a0shooting<\/a>\u00a0in Tehran in killing one and injuring two, the failed\u00a0attack<\/a>\u00a0on the Israeli Embassy in Baku by an Afghan national from Iran, and the support of a thousand-man\u00a0protest<\/a>\u00a0against the Istanbul offices of Azerbaijan`s National Oil Company SOCAR back in June.<\/p>\n Azerbaijan, like Jordan, deals with its own Iran-backed Shia militia group, the\u00a0 Islamic Resistance Movement of Azerbaijan or self-styled\u00a0Husseyniyun<\/a>, founded in 2019. Iran is exporting its revolution to Azerbaijan in order to destabilize and radicalize the secular, sovereign state using\u00a0subversion<\/a>\u00a0and the creation of Shiite terrorist cells, which ultimately began in the 1990s with the entrance of the Iranian Quds forces in Baku. Both Azerbaijan and Jordan\u2019s security forces are successfully monitoring and foiling Iran\u2019s\u00a0tactics<\/a>\u00a0on their territories. However, after Azerbaijan\u2019s victory in the 2020 Karabakh War and subsequent peace talks, as well as Baku\u2019s new position as a regional military power backed by Turkey and respected by Russia, Iran has decided to thaw their frozen\u00a0relationship<\/a>. This materialized in the opening of Azerbaijan\u2019s new, monumental\u00a0embassy<\/a>\u00a0in Tehran on July 15, 2024, reopened for the sake of \u201cmutual respect and good neighborliness\u201d \u2014 not so much in cooperation, but in compelled contact.<\/p>\n Azerbaijan and Jordan, two in the same<\/b><\/p>\n Azerbaijan and Jordan are two states walking a tightrope between their relations with Israel, a partner against Shiite terror expansion and a satellite of the U.S.-led security umbrella; and Iran, a rogue state whose veiled regional power and foreign assets could devastate their respective territories. Furthermore, both are key partners with NATO: Jordan just received a\u00a0NATO<\/a>\u00a0office in its capital to be a \u201cbeacon of stability in both regional and global contexts\u2026 in fighting transnational threats, including terrorism and violent extremism;\u201d and Azerbaijan for nearly three decades has been \u201cdeveloping\u00a0closer and closer ties<\/a>\u00a0with several NATO allies\u201d like its alliance with Turkey, which allowed Baku to reach\u00a0NATO-standard military power<\/a>.<\/p>\n One would think these two Western-facing, security-driven states would be natural friends, but not much has been done bilaterally to truly upgrade their relations. Amman has for several decades supported Azerbaijan\u2019s territorial integrity over\u00a0Karabakh<\/a>\u00a0and even adopted a resolution on the Khojaly massacre committed by Armenian separatists in the 1990s. In turn, representatives from Azerbaijan\u2019s armed forces have been long-time\u00a0visitors<\/a>\u00a0of Amman\u2019s Special Operations Forces Exhibition and Conference (SOFEX), and feature Jordanian arms\u00a0companies<\/a>\u00a0at Azerbaijan International Defense Exhibition (ADEX). Overall, the relationship was \u201cstrategic\u201d in name only.<\/p>\n Azerbaijan-Jordan recent cooperation<\/b><\/p>\n However, the Israel-Hamas War has been a red flag to both Azerbaijani and Jordanian statesmen that the perfect partnership was right in front of them. After October 7th, King Abdullah II of Jordan visited his Azerbaijani counterpart President Ilham Aliyev in Baku on February 22, 2023, the highest level bilateral\u00a0meeting<\/a>\u00a0between the two states since before\u00a02020<\/a>. The two leaders discussed enhancing \u201cefforts to achieve peace, strengthen security and stability in the Middle East” in coordination with each other\u2019s militaries, to which King Abdullah regarded relations with Baku as \u201chigh-level\u201d and \u201cbrotherly.\u201d<\/p>\n Relations were taken to the next level in April 2024 when Azerbaijani Defense Minister Colonel General Zakir Hasanov met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee of the Jordanian Armed Forces Major General Yousef Huneiti in Amman. The two signed an agreement of defense cooperation that would enhance their \u201cmilitary-technical fields<\/a>\u201d and would \u201cserve as a\u00a0model<\/a>\u00a0for overcoming various challenges and difficulties.\u201d Afterwards, Defense Minister Hasanov met with\u00a0King Abdullah II<\/a>, leading to a bilateral\u00a0meeting<\/a>\u00a0between the two states\u2019 defense advisory mutual defense operations and military education modules.<\/p>\n Next steps to curb the Shia Crescent<\/b><\/p>\n Azerbaijan-Jordan relations are still not where they could be. The Israel-Hamas War and the impending war against Hezbollah, with possible Iraqi and Syrian involvement, provides a stage to countries in opposition to the Crescent\u2019s expansion to unite. Given Baku and Amman\u2019s growing bilateral military relations, strategic relationship with Israel and aversion to Iran, there is no question who their natural allies are, that is, themselves.<\/p>\n They are in geostrategically important locations that, if connected through responsive military intelligence, would help mitigate further Iranian provocation. On one side, Jordan is wedged between Iran-allied Syria and Iraq but compensates for its precarious position by cooperating with its larger, militarily superior partner\u00a0Saudi Arabia<\/a>, which proved its allegiance to the West\u2019s military institutions during their Iranian attack on Israel. On the other side, Azerbaijan blocks Iran\u2019s expansion in the South Caucasus and with its alliance with Turkey, Iran\u2019s NATO-backed regional rival, soft and hard power incursions are kept at bay.<\/p>\n A stronger military partnership between Azerbaijan and Jordan will require their leaders to understand a necessity for a partnership. As of late, the new cooperative agreements between the two states\u2019 military forces is promising, but when Iran makes its penultimate strike on the Middle East, Azerbaijan and Jordan will naturally go through a close realignment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Shia Crescent goes \u201cFull Moon\u201d post-October 7 During the Global War on Terror in the early 2000s, King Abdullah II of Jordan coined the term \u201cShia Crescent\u201d to describe the Iranian grand strategy of large-scale and wide-ranging ideological armed struggle to create a Shiite empire from Tehran to Damascus. There is no other way to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":220,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,33],"tags":[35,56,55,54,57,58,45],"class_list":["post-219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","category-topchubashov","tag-azerbaijan","tag-hezbollah","tag-iran","tag-israel","tag-jordan","tag-middle-east","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/think-tanks.az\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/think-tanks.az\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/think-tanks.az\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/think-tanks.az\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/think-tanks.az\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/think-tanks.az\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":221,"href":"https:\/\/think-tanks.az\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219\/revisions\/221"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/think-tanks.az\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/think-tanks.az\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/think-tanks.az\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/think-tanks.az\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}