http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/294856/bolton-blames-obama-leaking-israeli-azerbaijan-relationship-patrick-brennan
BOLTON BLAMES OBAMA FOR LEAKING ISRAELI-AZERBAIJAN DEAL: PATRICK BRENNAN
According to a new article in Foreign Policy, Israel has, through a longtime but recently deepened relationship with Azerbaijan, gained access to airfields in a country bordering Iran, which it could use to make more feasible its attack on Iran. FP reports:
In 2009, the deputy chief of mission of the U.S. embassy in Baku, Donald Lu, sent a cable to the State Department’s headquarters in Foggy Bottom titled “Azerbaijan’s discreet symbiosis with Israel.” The memo, later released by WikiLeaks, quotes Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev as describing his country’s relationship with the Jewish state as an iceberg: “nine-tenths of it is below the surface.”
Why does it matter? Because Azerbaijan is strategically located on Iran’s northern border and, according to several high-level sources I’ve spoken with inside the U.S. government, Obama administration officials now believe that the “submerged” aspect of the Israeli-Azerbaijani alliance — the security cooperation between the two countries — is heightening the risks of an Israeli strike on Iran. . . . “The Israelis have bought an airfield,” a senior administration official told me in early February, “and the airfield is called Azerbaijan.”