U.S. foreign policy generating global bewilderment: The Washington Times
By Trend
At a time when the direction of America’s foreign policy is
generating abundant global bewilderment, policymakers in Congress
and the administration must be mindful not to alienate more allies
and increase doubt and distrust of America’s promises, according to
Alex Vatanka, said the Washington Times article of a senior fellow
at the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C. Alex Vatanka.
He noted that Azerbaijan is one of those ally countries.
“Authorities in Baku are increasingly speculating about
Washington’s commitment to its strategic allies and its own stated
values,” Vatanka said. “Some of America’s latest policy
maneuverings, including an inconsistent and largely toothless
response to Russia’s actions in Ukraine, have not helped alleviate
Baku’s fears.”
He further noted that Azerbaijan, since its independence upon the
fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, has considered the United States
as one of its principal strategic partners.
“This conscious, but at times hazardous, choice to turn to
Washington was, from the outset, rooted in a belief in American
strength and hope in Washington’s fairness in mediating among
disputing nations,” he noted. “It was a conviction that drove
successive Azerbaijani governments to accept American arbitration
in Baku’s conflict with neighboring Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh,
an Azerbaijani region occupied by Armenian forces since the end of
a war in 1994.”
Vatanka said that for 20 years Azerbaijan has patiently stuck to
this belief in the US as the foolproof arbiter that will somehow
and someday help engineer a peaceful resolution to this frozen
conflict in the South Caucasus.
“Increasingly, however, the Azerbaijanis question whether the
United States prioritizes short-term goals over long-term
objectives of peacemaking and the upholding of key American values,
including respect for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of
nations,” he further noted.
Vatanka said Azerbaijan’s anxieties about Congress and the
administration’s stance on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict recently
surfaced again following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in
March.
“Officials in Baku quickly grasped the possible impact of Moscow’s
actions on the fate of other forcefully annexed territories,
including Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh region,” he said.
“At a minimum, Baku had hoped that the United States would adhere
to the same principles when adopting policies to deal with
international territorial disputes,” Vatanka added.
He went on to note that the US policymakers in Congress and the
executive, however, seem more preoccupied with scoring symbolic
geopolitical points against Moscow than applying international laws
on the question of territorial integrity of states.
“It is one thing to pursue a muddled foreign policy that leaves US
allies puzzled; it is an entirely different proposition — and with
potential grave consequences for America’s global leverage — when
Washington’s policies foster a sense of American double standards
or its undependability as a partner,” the author added.
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