The Message Is the Medium: How Trump’s Buffoonery Obscures Caucasus Realities

Ensuring Socio-economic Justice

Crescent International

Safar 23, 1447 2025-08-17

Daily News Analysis

by Crescent International

People are often drawn to theatrics and entertainment.

Not surprisingly, Donald Trump’s buffoonery is often misread as serious politics, because the spectacle he stages around issues, he does not fully grasp creates the illusion of substance.

The performance becomes the message, and the message is mistaken for policy.

Trump’s antics at the August 8 signing of the Azerbaijan–Armenia peace accord (not treaty) were promptly misframed, particularly by western media which is in denial that the west-centric global hegemony is over.

The British daily The Guardian published a bombastic article titled, “Iran and Russia stand to lose from US deal with Azerbaijan and Armenia,” fixating on the optics in Washington while completely ignoring the crucial background details that led Azerbaijan and Armenia to sign a peace accord there.

Let’s remind our readers of a crucial context of how Azerbaijan and Armenia got to the point of signing the peace accord in Washington.

On September 11, 2023, the US military held joint drills with Armenian armed forces under what was code-named Eagle Partner 2023.

Eight days later, Azerbaijan launched military operations against Armenian nationalist militias occupying parts of Karabakh. The Armenians were soundly defeated.

Those familiar with the situation in the region can easily put two and two together.

Russia will not tolerate American military and political encroachment into the countries of the former Soviet Union without it being under Moscow’s oversight.

It should also be remembered that Russia has a significant military base in Armenia.

In recent times, Moscow has been reenforcing the base.

The aspect of the peace accord which caught a lot of attention was the Zangezur corridor where an American company will now play an administrative role.

Zangezur is part of Armenia which separates mainland Azerbaijan Republic from Nakhichevan.

Since 2023, Azerbaijan and Russia have pushed Armenia to allow Azerbaijan and Türkiye to use the Zangezur corridor as a logistical trade route.

Tehran does not oppose the idea, provided the corridor remains part of Armenia.

Iran views the matter through a geopolitical—rather than purely economic—lens.

Tehran’s core principle is that borders must not be altered by force.

For this reason, Iran to this day refuses to recognize the Russian annexation of Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and territories in Ukraine.

However, in Iran’s view the Russian suggestion grants Türkiye and now the US, a NATO member state, access to the Caucasus and Central Asia.

This is something Russia may tolerate, but not Iran.

A key point missing from recent western media coverage of the Armenia–Azerbaijan peace accord is the trilateral statement of November 9, 2020 (Russia–Armenia–Azerbaijan).

This semi-agreement provides for the unblocking of regional transport links and places oversight of these connections—what today’s coverage refers to as the Zangazur Corridor—under Russia’s FSB Border Guard Service.

This framework, agreed upon by all three parties, forms the operative context behind today’s headlines.

With the above in mind, while official US involvement in the Caucasus may be a novel development, it does not represent a setback for Russia.

Such involvement is taking place under Russian oversight, and in the current geopolitical climate—where no state in the post-Soviet space wishes to become another “Ukraine”—it is highly improbable that the region’s entrenched, illegitimate autocrats, many of whom function as Russian clients, would risk jeopardizing their relations with Moscow.

It should be remembered that Russia tolerated American military presence in Kyrgyzstan between 2001 and 2014.

As long as western presence is coordinated with Russia and under Russian oversight, Moscow has nothing to fear.

When it comes to Islamic Iran, the situation is more complex.

For decades, Tehran has approached its foreign policy in the Caucasus with the deliberate aim of avoiding tensions with Russia.

Iran recognizes the strategic importance of Moscow as a counterbalance to western and zionist plots.

However, the June war imposed on Islamic Iran by the US–zionist–EU trio is prompting Tehran to reconfigure many of its long-standing approaches.

One key reason is that Iran now fully understands that Russia needs Iran just as much as the latter needs Russia.

With Moscow’s confrontation with western regimes is set to continue for the foreseeable future, Russia cannot afford to provoke tensions with Tehran—even if Iran crosses certain Russian geopolitical red lines.

This includes, for example, Iran’s increased support for genuine Islamic movements in Tajikistan and Azerbaijan, where it enjoys significant grassroots sympathy.

Such moves, once carefully avoided to maintain balance with Moscow, may now become more prominent in Iran’s regional strategy.

Why?

Only indigenous Islamic movements can provide an organic political deterrence to western regimes and their takfiri proxies seeking to instrumentalize the Caucasus and Central Asia for illegitimate ambitions—ambitions that, as in Syria and Libya, breed chaos and instability.