Israel’s Strikes Against Iran’s Caspian Fleet Might Be Driven By Post-War Energy Geopolitics

Israel might hope to embolden its close Azerbaijani partner to push through the Trans-Caspian Pipeline with Turkmenistan once the war is over due to its new naval advantage over Iran, but Russia has always opposed this project too, and it might actively obstruct it and thus nullify these plans.

Israel claimed to have destroyed several vessels from Iran’s Caspian Fleet last week despite them having no role in the Third Gulf War nor ability to threaten Israel. Speculation has accordingly swirled about what exactly Israel aimed to achieve by doing so other than dealing as much damage to Iran as possible. The Maritime Executive published an article arguing that “Israel Protects Azerbaijan With Strike on Iran’s Caspian Fleet”, which could also embolden Baku to disrupt the Russian-Iranian Caspian arms corridor.

While these strikes shifted the balance of naval power in Azerbaijan’s favor, President Ilham Aliyev might still play it cool in spite of how enraged he is that Iran earlier bombed his country’s exclave of Nakhchivan (which Iran insists was a false flag) due to Iran’s continued missile capabilities. Azerbaijan’s economy is dependent on energy exports whose infrastructure could easily be damaged just like the Gulf Kingdoms’ have been, not to mention destroyed, thus sparking an economic and possibly political crisis.

This explains why Aliyev didn’t authorize any retaliation after the Nakhchivan incident due to the reasonable fear that it could quickly spiral out of control and greatly harm Azerbaijan. Likewise, his country’s Turkish mutual defense ally might have signaled that it doesn’t want to get dragged into the Third Gulf War unless the US goes through with playing the Kurdish card, but Iranian and Iraqi Kurdish militias are still very reluctant to get involved due to the US’ history of hanging the Kurds out to dry.

Azerbaijan therefore isn’t expected to exploit its advantage over Iran in the Caspian, let alone invade Iran to take over what its nationalists consider to be “South Azerbaijan”, unless Iran’s missile capability is completely degraded and Aliyev doesn’t believe that his country’s energy infrastructure would be at risk. What it’s more likely to do, however, is wait until the dust settles and try to capitalize off of its aforesaid naval advantage by attempting to push through the Trans-Caspian Pipeline with Turkmenistan.

If Iran’s military capabilities are tremendously weakened after the war ends, to say nothing if there are political changes that recalibrate its foreign policy in a relatively more pro-Western direction (i.e. Venezuelan-like “regime tweaking” instead of regime change), then Azerbaijan might be emboldened. The “Trump Route for International Peace & Prosperity” (TRIPP) could expand Turkish, US, and overall NATO influence to the Caspian for deterring Iran from obstructing this project that it’s always opposed.

Where Israel stands to gain by engineering the regional naval balance in its close Azerbaijani partner’s favor is obtaining gas from the eastern side of the Caspian via a future pipeline across TRIPP to complement the oil (~40% of its total imports) that it already receives from its western side. Azerbaijan’s naval advantage, its alliance with Turkiye, and the expansion of US influence along Iran’s entire northern periphery via TRIPP might be sufficient for deterring Iran, but Russia might be a totally different matter.

Therein lies the crux of Israel’s post-war Caspian energy plans since Russia has also always opposed the Trans-Caspian Pipeline, not to mention the expansion of Western (whether Turkish, US, or overall NATO) influence along its entire southern periphery in the South Caucasus, Caspian, and Central Asia. If Russia can’t be incentivized to allow this project to proceed, then it might actively obstruct it to the point of sparking a crisis, thus nullifying the arguable reason why Israel recently struck Iran’s Caspian fleet.