Baku — Iran’s top general may have delivered his warning in Tehran, but the intended audience included Azerbaijan. The message: U.S. involvement in the South Caucasus is destabilizing. The response from Baku: not enough to change course.
For Azerbaijan, Washington’s presence — from peace negotiations to the “Trump Route” corridor — is less a danger than a safeguard. It strengthens ties with Turkey, reassures investors, and locks in gains from the 2020 and 2023 wars.
Why Baku won’t shift: Iran’s complaints are not new. Tehran objected to Turkish troops training in Azerbaijan, to Western oil contracts in the Caspian, and to NATO’s occasional overtures. None of those slowed Baku’s trajectory. The U.S.-backed corridor is seen as the same — something Iran dislikes but cannot stop.
President Ilham Aliyev has cast the corridor as a sovereign project that binds Azerbaijan closer to Turkey and Central Asia. In his calculus, Iran may protest but ultimately adjust, just as it did when Turkish drones and military advisors became a fixture in Azerbaijan’s defense.
Regional echoes: The corridor undercuts Iran’s own transit routes, but that is precisely its strategic value for Baku. It reduces dependence on Tehran and Moscow while embedding Azerbaijan deeper into Western- and Turkish-backed networks.
The bottom line: Iran may worry, but Azerbaijan calculates it holds the stronger hand. By aligning with Washington and Ankara, Aliyev is building a buffer against Iranian and Russian leverage. The warning from Tehran, while noted, is unlikely to slow the pace.
