On March 22, 2023, Secretary of State Antony Blinken testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Chairman Bob Menendez (D-NJ) asked the secretary about his waiver of Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act. Legally, the secretary can waive Section 907 to allow military assistance to Azerbaijan only if he can certify Azerbaijan remains committed to resolve its dispute with Armenia solely through diplomacy.  

Blinken cast legality aside, however. “They [Azerbaijan] have a long border with Iran that needs defending,” he told the Committee. He also cited “the interoperability between their forces, ours, NATO’s, [as] they engage in peacekeeping.”

Blinken’s brazen dismissal of US law is scandalous. If he does not like the law, he should call on Congress to change it. The South Caucasus are not a partisan issue. He cannot abrogate law because doing so makes his job easier nor can he unilaterally abide only by what he finds convenient. Congress should be furious.

Blinken’s logic is also weak. Azerbaijan has a long border with Iran? So too does Afghanistan. This is irrelevant. Will the United States use the length of the Afghan-Iran frontier as an excuse to arm the Taliban?

While Blinken is correct Iran poses a threat, this is irrelevant if Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev diverts US weaponry to fuel his aggression against Armenia.

Blinken’s testimony shows the State Department does not learn from mistakes. Fighting the Islamic State was a noble cause, but Iraqi Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani diverted hundreds of millions of dollars of weaponry meant to fight the radical group in order to bolster his rule against political rivals. More recently, Somalia diverted the US-supported Danab militia that the Pentagon armed to fight Al Shabaab terrorists in order to attack Somaliland. 

Blinken’s argument about peacekeeping is no better. According to UN tallies, Azerbaijan contributes exactly two men to UN peacekeeping missions. That is fewer than the Pacific island nation of Nauru, and quite a small price to justify the secretary of State to violate the law.

It should worry Washington that Azerbaijani media reprinted Blinken’s statements in the same way that the Soviet press once delighted in the reporting of Pulitzer winner and Stalin propagandist Walter Duranty. Blinken is wrong to believe defying law advances diplomacy. If the State Department wants to resolve conflict in the Caucasus diplomatically, it is time to end Azerbaijan’s arms pipeline.

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