I am not saying they are Qajars, I said if this border is closed, then yes it is fair to call them Qajars because they have locked us out of Qafqaz region.
Present day Iran and the Qajar dynasty would still be like night and day, for the reasons I listed (you didn't address them). However as I stated, Iran has made it abundantly clear she will not tolerate the eventuality of the Baku regime attempting to grab internationally recognized Armenian land.
If Pashanyan wants to sell Artaskh, frankly that is not crossing a redline of Iran, I will agree with you there but if you are looking at the battlefield events, Azerbaijan as I type this has already attack villages deep into Syunik and its ambitions have been very clearly to control this corridor and lock Iran out. If you want to wait until they are at the finish line before making an impact, then we will have to pay a higher price for it. Our passivity is starting to look like Putins passivity for years in Ukraine.
I did not envisage Azarbaijan confining itself to Artsakh. We don't know what they will be doing from now on. I didn't say I want Iran to wait until they're done, I'm saying I trust Iran to make her move at the most opportune moment.
Russia did not stay entirely passive in the face of NATO encroachment in Ukraine. It took Crimea and began supporting separatist rebels in the Donbas after Yanukovich's removal in 2014.
Since when you do care about neoliberal rules based international order?
My position's got nothing to do with a neoliberal international order. What the "rules based" concept you're evoking means in practice, is subversion of international law by western powers imposing their own rules.
Also, please show me where I ventured into the legal territory. I focused on political legitimacy, which is very different from legality, as well as on opportunity, cost-effectiveness and viability.
We send ballistic missiles to Houthis, and targeted inside Abu Dhabi without giving a shit, we attack Abqaiq of Saudi Arabia.
In the midst of a hot shooting war which had been going on for years, and was involving a close ally of Iran, the legitimate Yemeni government led by AnsarAllah. Did Iran strike Saudi and Emirati installations preemptively? Who's Iran's close ally in the southern Caucasus?
We give sophisticated technology to non-state actors. All the things we've done is actually more than enough justification for states in the region and the United states to wage a war against Iran. When it comes to the Israeli republic of Baku, it is all about diplomacy? That is not the Islamic Republic of Iran that I know of.
That's because you aren't taking into account the entire range of factors involved in the Armenian-Azarbaijani conflict now. When did I advocate or mention the term diplomacy?
Pashayan may be a traitor and a loser for the west, but when has that ever stopped us from protecting our interests?
*Pashinyan is not the only issue here. Another, more important one are Iran's local allies in the so-called Azarbaijan Republic. They built their legitimacy on being good Azari patriots. You will need an extremely smart and sophisticated approach, which won't come to the fore through general analogies with the conflict in Yemen, in order to avoid offering the Aliyev mafia the trigger it has been waiting for to comfortably isolate, ostracize and eliminate any and all Iran-friendly elements across the Aras. Mind you, inside the Azarbaijan Republic it's these elements Iran would want to rely on if push came to shove. Now there are solutions to this, but they don't merely boil down to arming Armenia and calling it a day. It's more complex than that.
Furthermore and to address to your question, when was the last time Iran extended wide scale military assistance to a government suspected of shilling for the zionist regime and NATO, which might have no intention to make proper use of the sophisticated Iranian weaponry it would receive, and might even end up making it available to the enemy for closer scrutiny? Any examples?
Azerbijian must know if it seizes villages inside Syunik (which they have done, technically violating our red line), then they are risking limited attacks from Iran (within Armenia) to drive them out.
Iran's red line consists in changes to the borders of the region, and I will include de facto changes in that definition, not only de jure ones. Now how do you know Azarbaijan is going to station its forces indefinitely there? Even if it does, this will open multiple opportunities for Iran to make life difficult for those same forces.
If I may, you're tending to jump the gun prematurely without considering the whole picture and while going overboard with negative presumptions as to what Iran's reaction will be.
They are also risking an Islamic awakening inside Azerbaijan. If these threats have been given and they still ignore, then perhaps the SL has to reconsider its approach to this Kheybar state in the making.
Not sure what Islamic Awakening you're having in mind.
The Supreme Leader doesn't have to reconsider his approach: it is a clear and sound one, conditioned upon the Baku regime's behaviour.
I mentioned before but I will mention again, just incase, I wasn't likening the Islamic Republic to Qajar era. I was comparing them to Qajar if this land connection is cut off, because that is exactly what happened to us during that era, we lost all contact with Qafqaz region.
No, Iran lost Aran va Shirvan (present day Republic of Baku), Georgia, Armenia and Daqestan to the tsarist empire. It's not access to regions outside her borders we're talking about, but actual land and territory of her own. It's apples and oranges.
Let me thus reiterate my invitation to try and refrain from inaccurate historic analogies, as they are not helpful.
