Azerbaijan, the ostensibly pro-Western and secular dictatorship in the Caucasus, likes to depict itself as a bastion of religious tolerance, a bulwark against Islamist terrorism, and an ally in the West’s efforts to free itself from energy dependence on hostile powers.
Baku’s cynicism toward its Jewish and Christian populations is well-established. It subsidizes, if not pays for, luxurious junkets, many of which visit the same Jewish villages or Christian leaders, all of whom attest to the regime’s munificence. The Jewish villages are largely museums, and the minority interlocutors are well-practiced tour guides for the naive or corrupt.
Ilham Aliyev, Azerbaijan’s dynastic dictator, is equally deceptive in his opposition to jihadism. Following the 2023 ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh, Aliyev arrested the region’s democratically elected, ethnic Armenian leaders on false terrorism charges. Azerbaijan’s Armenian hostages include philanthropist and former state minister Ruben Vardanyan and former foreign minister David Babayan, a 52-year-old academic and author of several books. Aliyev’s show trials harken back to the Soviet era; outside his domestic audience, they have no resonance.
What is important, however, is Aliyev’s attempt to draw moral equivalence between the Armenian intellectuals he holds and the terrorists and mercenaries to whom he draws equivalence and whom he demands Armenia release. Turkey recruited up to 2,000 Syrian jihadists, for example, to fight a religious war against Christians. The United Nations working group on the use of mercenaries also expressed concern about the recruitment of poor Syrians and their embrace by Azerbaijan. “We came here to cut the heads of [unbelievers] off,” one terrorist now in Armenian custody explained. Azerbaijan would pay a bonus for every severed head the Syrian mercenaries provided. That Aliyev would use Azerbaijan’s diplomatic capital to demand the release of jihadis intent on beheading Christians shows more than any junket for think-tankers, diplomats, or influencers where his heart truly lies; it also contradicts Azerbaijan’s narrative as a country that the West can trust to uphold security norms.
Azerbaijan also undermines U.S. sanctions on Russia. Less than a week before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s Lukoil purchased a nearly 10% stake in the Shah Deniz natural gas project from Malaysian oil and gas company Petronas, a deal that made Lukoil a partner of the Azerbaijani state-owned oil firm SOCAR. While Azerbaijan sells itself as a means to bypass Iranian and Russian gas, Baku’s math does not add up, as the gas it produces is less than that it pipes to Europe, meaning it serves as a conduit to launder Iranian and Russian gas.
On Oct. 22, the U.S. Department of the Treasury slapped sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil subsidies to pressure Russia to accept a ceasefire with Ukraine. It exempted Lukoil’s Azerbaijan operations, allowing Baku to continue to profit from Russia’s oil and gas trade even as Aliyev sells himself as an alternative. The British government has not been so easily deceived; on May 9, 2025, London sanctioned an Azerbaijani tanker operating within Russia’s “dark fleet” smuggling oil. SOCAR has purchased two other tankers, though, that continue the trade.
HEGSETH PLEDGES TO RESHAPE WAR DEPARTMENT AFTER ‘DECADES OF DECAY’
President Donald Trump is correct to fight Islamist terrorism and use sanctions to coerce Russian President Vladimir Putin toward peace, but when countries like Azerbaijan receive plaudits for saying the right thing but then do the opposite, they actively undercut regional security and make a mockery of Trump.
The White House and State Department must start calibrating policy to reality rather than rhetoric. Forcing Baku to stop supporting religious repression, jihadi terrorism, and sanctions busting would be a good place to start.
Michael Rubin is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential. He is the director of analysis at the Middle East Forum and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.