Azerbaijan’s Iran crisis mood: anxiety, not triumph

CAUCASUS / CENTRAL ASIA - In Brief 09 Mar 2026 by Ivan Tchakarov

---

I spent much of the weekend wading through Azerbaijani commentary on the latest round of conflict with Iran (Iran's alleged drone strike against Nakhchivan, the militarized response from Baku, Iran's military public appeal to Azerbaijan to expel Israelis from its territory, as the latter presumably poses a threat to the former's security in the current episode of escalation). The prevailing attitude is not triumphalist but rather anxious. I was trying to understand what Azerbaijani experts, political commentators—and most importantly ordinary people—are saying about the unpleasant to and fro going between Baku and Tehran and the mutual accusations that both sides have been levelling at each other. The impressions are many, but several stand out: Many people are stunned by the extremely emotional reaction from Aliyev. Commentators note that they have never seen their President in such a state before. A graduate of the elite Russian MGIMO and a politician known for carefully weighing his words (unless speaking about Armenians, of course) suddenly switched to open insults and street-level rhetoric against Iran. The situation itself hardly seemed to warrant such a reaction—at least not before the facts were fully established. The dominant mood is one of anxiety. In fact, anxiousness is the main theme running through Azerbaijan’s information field right now. For perhaps the first time in years, I did not encounter the words “Armenia” or “Armenians” even once in these discussions. That in itself is an anomaly—and a sign of real stress in Azerbaijani society. There is a growing realization that if the “Great Leader and Supreme Commander” decides to go to war with Iran, many p...