magazine report citing unnamed US diplomats and military intelligence officers.
“The Israelis have bought an airfield,” a senior official is quoted as saying, “and the airfield is called Azerbaijan.”
If indeed the airbase exists, it could change the dynamics of Israeli threats to attack Iran, making the logistics simpler and an attack easier. Currently, Israeli planes would have to travel 2,200 miles on a roundtrip over hostile territory to bomb Iranian nuclear sites, needing to refuel midway.
But an airbase in Azerbaijan would solve the refueling issue and also give Israel the ability to assess the damage if strikes were successful or to recover its air crews in case they were downed during the mission.
The leak comes after several months of dramatically escalating war rhetoric from Israel and efforts by the Obama Administration to cool the war talk.
“We’re watching what Iran does closelyÖ. But we’re now watching what Israel is doing in Azerbaijan,” Foreign Policy quotes an unnamed US intelligence officer. “And we’re not happy about it.”
Israel and Azerbaijan have grown increasingly close in recent years, with Israel buying increasing amounts of oil from Azerbaijan while Azerbaijan has agreed to buy $1.6 billion worth of defense hardware from Israel. Iran has recently accused Azerbaijan of helping Israeli intelligence assassinate its nuclear scientists.
But this latest report may not only worsen the ties between Azerbaijan and Iran, but also further aggravate the already-tense relations between the Obama Administration and the Netan-yahu government.
For its part, Baku has denied the reports. “This information is absurd and groundless,” said Defense Ministry spokesman Teymur Abdullayev.
“We have stated on numerous occasions and we reiterate that there will be no actions against Iran Ö from the territory of Azerbaijan,” said presidential spokesman Ali Hasanov.
Israel has not yet made any public comments about the report, although hardline commentators in both the Israeli and American press have lashed out at the leak itself.
Ron Ben-Yishai, a columnist at the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth, said the story about the Azerbaijan base came from the Obama Administration, which he said is running a “campaign” to prevent Israel from striking Iran.
“The campaign’s aims are fully operational: to make it more difficult for Israeli decision-makers to order the IDF [Israeli Defense Force] to carry out a strike, and, what’s even graver, to erode the IDF’s capacity to launch such a strike with minimal casualties,” he wrote.
Former US Ambassador John Bolton agreed: “I think this leak today is part of the administration’s campaign against an Israeli attack,” he told Fox News. “Clearly, this is an Administration-orchestrated leak.”
However, another Yedioth Ahronoth columnist, Alex Fishman, expressed skepticism that the base in Azerbaijan really exists.
“I don’t believe that there’s news behind this story because it doesn’t make sense. It’s very romantic,Ö but less practical,” he said. Fishman thinks the leak could be part of a psychological effort in the lead-up to nuclear negotiations with Iran.
He said the report’s purpose is “to show the Iranians that something is going on, to make them much more suspicious, much more nervous. You need this pressure in order to put them in a lower position when negotiations start.”
On the same day the Azerbaijan base story appeared, Bloomberg news carried a story about another leak—this one from a congressional report—saying that Iran’s nuclear installations are so scattered that it is “unclear what the ultimate effect of a strike would beÖ.” The report quotes a former US official who said that a strike could delay Iran’s nuclear plans by as little as six months.
Ben-Yeshai took a tough line on the second report as well: “Instead of forcing the Iranians to piece together all the assessments themselves, the congressional report offers them everything in one place.”