If the Azeri government is able to stop corruption, it can push back an Arab spring situation

     TURAN’s Washington, DC correspondent has interviewed Dr. Lincoln Mitchell, an Associate at Columbia University's Harriman Institute, and author of the book “The Color Revolutions in the former Soviet Union”.

    Being a practitioner in the field of political development, Mr. Mitchell is also a frequent blogger The Huffington Post, where he writes primarily about domestic US politics.

Dr. Mitchell’s current research includes work on democratic transitions in the former Soviet Union, the role of democracy promotion in American foreign policy and on public opinion in the Muslim World. His first book “Uncertain Democracy: US Foreign Policy and Georgia’s Rose Revolution” was published in 2008.

     Question: A veteran diplomat Richard Morningstar will take the oath as a new US Ambassador to Azerbaijan today, July 20. What will be the main challenges for the new Ambassador and his team in Baku during next two years? How would you list current main priorities on the US in Azerbaijan?

Answer: Some of the priorities are the same as they have ever been… Oil, stability and democracy- but only as big as that it doesn’t have to argue with one and two. So, democracy is the mid-level priority at absolute best.

 The new issue - which I wouldn’t say six months ago, or a year ago - necessarily, is Iran. Azerbaijan is becoming a place, a country that is part of the broader US-Iran environment. Azerbaijan has positioned itself as very close to the US on Iran. And that is a wise positioning on the part of Azerbaijan.

  The government of Azerbaijan is very smart in putting all these things up - on democracy, by telling, do you really want t o push this government, keep the oil flowing and cooperates on security issues, and takes a position on Iran, do you really want to push this government even though everyone knows it is not a democracy? Cooperation between our two governments on Iran is more important to the US and the American government and people, than whether or not Azerbaijan becomes more democratic…

Question: What exactly does the US expect from Azerbaijan in its Iran policy?

Answer: The expectation is that Azerbaijan doesn’t become a country where Iranians can find some kind of way to avoid sanctions... The US doesn’t want Azerbaijan in any way to become another theater of Iran-Israeli stride. And specifically Iranians’ killing Israelis or an Israeli diplomat, that’s one thing, avoiding the sanctions is something else.

Finding any ways to help Iran’s weapons program would probably be the most important thing, but that is unlikely right now.

Question: You've mentioned democracy at the bottom of the US priorities list in Azerbaijan. Being a person, who has closely researched the internal situation in the post-Soviet countries where the US and European countries have long been promoting several programs to support the return of democracy, - how does the situation in South Caucasus look like today? We’ve seen some rallies in Baku and Moscow last year, but they didn’t last long…What lessons from the Arab Spring would you highlight as most useful and applicable to Caucasus transition to democracy?

Answer: First of all, I think we have to differentiate between the Arab spring and the transitions to democracy. There are countries, where although some very bad dictators have been kicked out or killed, but the transition to democracy is a different question.

Said that, there are some lessons. One is that these things arrive sometimes unexpectedly. The whole revolution model is very much about elections, you know, they stole the elections, people come to the streets, etc. etc. the Arabic spring model got pushed too far. In Tunisia it got pushed too far... So therefore it is something you have to be aware of at any moment.

I think that smarter authoritarian governments in the region that while all the color revolutions were a failure of democracy, the Arab spring was a failure of government. A lot of this is because of the wide- spread unemployment, wide-spread corruption, and people not able to do anything with their life. For a country like Azerbaijan or Russia the message to the leadership is to govern better, not necessarily to govern democratically, although I would like to see them govern democratically, but govern better, deliver the services better, spread the wealth around a little bit more, eliminate the corruption. If the government in Baku is able to do that, they can push back the possibility of an Arab spring situation.

   Another thing is while the Aliyev dynasty has been around for a long time, the current leader hasn't been around for a long time, and he isn't a 70-year-old man that has been here for two generations. Mubarrak, Qaddafi – a lot of these guys were there for a very long time or increasingly out of touch. And they were approaching moments of transition that were going to be very complicated.

Question: But the fact is that the many in Baku believe, also several international organizations,

such as Freedom House, Human Rights Watch and others indicate that human rights records of

Central Asia and Caucasus' dictatorships had deteriorated in the past years. Can opposition or

youth movements change the situation in Azerbaijan? What should they know?

Answer: I’m always wary of saying “youth movements” are going to solve all the problems, because they don’t. Youth movements are valuable, but they don’t. I think it is important especially for the youth activists to know the extent of their support. To know whether they are just a bunch of young educated people or they really represent a real pool of anger or frustration. And that’s a hard thing to say, especially, as the youth movements are lead by young elite, and the people that make the ranking file of the color revolution or the Arab spring are not from elite.

Question: What are your expectations from the next year's presidential election in Azerbaijan?

Answer: It’s too early to know anything right now. I can talk of some things to look into; are there any signals coming from the west as the election approaches that stealing election the usual way is not going to be OK?

 I don’t know whether that’s going to happen or not, sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn’t. The Azerbaijani government will be trying to look for those signals.

Question: While talking about US democracy promotion efforts in post-Soviet dictatorships, the

first question that comes in mind is, would such efforts disrupt Washington's relationships with

such governments? Many in Baku see that the Obama administration is downgrading the status of human rights issues, especially with countries like Azerbaijan. Where do you come down on that?

Answer: Im not sure I would attribute that to what the Obama administration is doing, or whether that is the political reality of the 21st century as we get into its second decade. I’m not sure if those are tensions of the Obama administration, or if they are captured by the circumstances. They have fewer options than we did a decade ago.

  If the Obama administration decided that they wanted more than anything to have a democratic

presidential election next year in Azerbaijan, I don’t know what they would do or they could do. That’s a much more difficult environment. Azerbaijan is US’ partner, like Georgia, and we don’t want a fight with Azerbaijan.

Question: How would you describe Azerbaijan's real image in the world? The country has just

recently hosted an Eurovision contest and was a member of the UN Security Council. On the

other hand, for example the CNBC, BBC and other world famous sources run the reportages on

Azerbaijani President's family incomes… For many in Baku there is nothing new in such coverage. But what about the "outsiders"? How do such facts influence the country's international image?

Answer: The Eurovision didn’t help the image of Azerbaijan. They thought it would, but it didn’t. it was very difficult to hide the real nature of the Azerbaijani regime. It brought a lot of attention to Azerbaijan and aloud the human rights groups and journalists talk about what’s really happening there. Azerbaijan’s image in the west, you have to remember, it’s not a high priority, but Azerbaijan – you know, on one hand it’s a country where people think there is an authoritarian regime, and people also don’t care that much, but there is a very big expectation. It’s a post-soviet Muslim country on the other side of the world; no one expects it to be a democracy.

Question: What do you think about the place of Islam in the region, as some are afraid that it is

increasingly becoming a factor in the politics of the region, by replacing the regular opposition

especially in Azerbaijan? Where do you think the country is going to end up with this policy?

Answer: This problem is not going to go away. And this is also one of the lessons of the Arab spring. The Islamists don’t go away; they stay in the power more than the liberal democratic opposition does. And when you try to harass or arrest them it doesn’t really work. And this is a much longer term threat.

  The other difference is that the country will get at least passive support for cracking down on them from the west, because they link them with potential terrorism and all of that. -25B-