The delicate dynamics of the Middle East are once again being reshaped by new alliances and military cooperation, as evidenced by the recent joint military exercise conducted by Iran and Azerbaijan. Against a backdrop of historic tensions, shifting borders, and opposing regional interests, the evolving relationship between Tehran and Baku is sending ripples far beyond their immediate neighbors, reawakening longstanding concerns in Jerusalem and across the Western alliance. This development raises acute questions about the stability of Israel’s northern and eastern flanks, the strategic ambitions of the Iranian regime, and the West’s ability to maintain vital security partnerships in a region gripped by ideological conflicts and existential rivalries.
Photographs and reports emerging from the Iranian-Azerbaijani exercise, staged in close proximity to Israel’s extended strategic periphery, offer a sharp visual representation of a collaboration that many Israeli and Western analysts view with apprehension. While Azerbaijan has, until recently, straddled a careful diplomatic line—a predominantly Shia country, but distinct from Iran in ethnicity and politics—this latest demonstration of military solidarity marks a potentially significant vector shift. For Israel, a nation locked in a protracted campaign to contain Iranian military adventurism, every signal of closer ties between Iran and its regional neighbors carries grave implications. Israeli officials, from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Defense Minister Israel Katz and IDF Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir, have repeatedly described such rapprochement as a direct threat to the Jewish state’s security interests.
Historical context is crucial in understanding why even incremental shifts in Azerbaijani policy or orientation toward Tehran are so closely scrutinized. Since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union and Azerbaijan’s declaration of independence, Baku has sought to define itself apart from Iranian influence, despite their shared Shia heritage. Azerbaijan’s leadership has prioritized pragmatic relationships with Turkey, the United States, and—significantly—with Israel. Over two decades, Israel and Azerbaijan have developed deep security, intelligence, and energy ties, with Israeli defense exports playing a notable role in Baku’s military modernization. Israel, in turn, values Azerbaijan as a rare strategic partner in the Muslim world, an energy supplier, and a geographic counterbalance to Iranian power.
Yet, with the regional order in flux, Baku’s position is under renewed pressure. Iran views its northwestern neighbor both as a potential ally and as a source of anxiety. The long-running dispute over the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave—which has pitted Azerbaijan against Armenia, historically supported by Russia and, at times, nominally by Iran—has given Tehran both leverage and risk. Since 2020, when Azerbaijan regained significant territory from Armenian control, the Iranian regime has become more vocal and assertive, conducting frequent military drills along the shared border and issuing bellicose warnings regarding any perceived Israeli presence in Azerbaijan. The recent joint exercise reflects a simultaneous effort by Tehran to project influence and to signal its capacity to shape the regional security environment.
For Israel, the specter of Azerbaijani drift toward Iran is not merely diplomatic—it is an immediate operational matter. Israeli intelligence agencies have long monitored Iranian activities on the northern front, wary of Tehran’s efforts to encircle Israel through a network of proxies, allies, and client states. Hezbollah’s entrenchment in Lebanon, the militarization of Syria via Iranian and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) assets, and ongoing arms transfers to the Houthis in Yemen all illustrate the Iranian regime’s regional ambitions and its capacity for strategic surprise. Within this context, the potential for Iranian military access—direct or indirect—via Azerbaijani soil is a contingency Israeli planners cannot afford to ignore.
Western observers, too, recognize the broader strategic stakes. The United States has invested substantial diplomatic and military resources to maintain a favorable balance of power in the South Caucasus and to discourage alignments that could destabilize the eastern periphery of NATO’s area of concern. European capitals, focused on securing energy routes and reducing dependence on Russian and Iranian supplies, have supported the development of the Southern Gas Corridor, which runs from Azerbaijan through Georgia and Turkey to supply European markets. Any shift in Baku’s alignment or posture, particularly if it brings Iranian interests closer to the Western sphere, could complicate both commercial and strategic calculations.
The optics and outcomes of the latest Iran-Azerbaijan exercise must also be evaluated in the context of the ongoing regional campaign against Iranian-backed terror networks. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, designated as a terrorist organization by the United States and its allies, serves as the backbone of Iran’s extraterritorial ambitions—arming, training, and financing militias across Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza, and Yemen. Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis have all benefited from IRGC expertise, thereby transforming local conflicts into multi-front threats against Israel and, by extension, Western interests. The events since the October 7, 2023, Hamas massacre—an attack that resulted in the largest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust—have only heightened the urgency of strategic vigilance along all of Israel’s borders and alliances.
It is within this matrix of threats that each step closer between Iran and Azerbaijan must be analyzed. While public statements from both Baku and Tehran often emphasize routine military cooperation or mutual border security concerns, Israeli analysts warn that such exercises can easily serve as platforms for intelligence sharing, transfer of military technology, or rehearsal of operational coordination. Indeed, the history of Iranian involvement in regional theaters suggests a preference for gradual, covert expansion rather than dramatic, overt shifts—a pattern that complicates detection and response.
At the same time, Azerbaijan’s closest relationships continue to reflect a degree of balance. Turkish support remains vital for both Baku’s military and diplomatic stature; the Ankara-Baku axis has long provided a counterweight to Russian and Iranian influence. Israel’s security and intelligence cooperation with Azerbaijan, though often shrouded in confidentiality, is widely acknowledged by Western sources as instrumental in shaping the balance of power in the South Caucasus. Azerbaijani officials, including President Ilham Aliyev, have consistently stressed their country’s sovereignty and independence in foreign policy—seeking to avoid entanglement in wider regional conflicts while maximizing national interests.
However, the volatility of the South Caucasus—recently demonstrated by renewed tensions over disputed territories, external interference by Russia, and maneuvers by Turkey and Iran—renders this balance precarious. The Iranian regime, motivated both by ideological rivalry with Israel and by concerns over domestic restiveness among its own Azerbaijani minority, has repeatedly threatened action against any Israeli deployment or basing in Azerbaijan. Tehran’s rhetoric is matched by tangible steps: the deployment of IRGC units to the border, the organization of joint drills, and intensified intelligence operations. For Israel, such developments cannot be divorced from the broader Iranian strategy of encirclement, proxy warfare, and direct confrontation, as demonstrated on multiple fronts over the past decade.
Western diplomats and analysts caution that Azerbaijan’s engagement with Iran should not be interpreted as a full-scale realignment, but rather as a hedging strategy shaped by evolving security imperatives. The government in Baku is acutely aware of the dangers posed by open antagonism to Tehran; the loss or reduction of Turkish or Israeli support, however, would risk upsetting carefully cultivated deterrence against Armenian and Russian maneuvers. Thus, the joint military exercise may be best understood as a tactical signaling measure—intended to preserve dialogue, to assuage Iranian anxieties over border security, or to extract concessions in parallel diplomatic negotiations.
Nevertheless, the impact on Israeli strategic planning is substantial. Jerusalem must now account for a reduced margin of maneuver in its intelligence and diplomatic operations in the South Caucasus. Reports from Israeli officials and leading security think tanks indicate a renewed push to deepen ties with other regional actors, strengthen technological countermeasures, and escalate diplomatic outreach to prevent further realignment toward Iranian influence. The importance of maintaining robust relations with Baku, Ankara, and Western partners is at the forefront of Israel’s foreign and defense policy objectives in this new period of uncertainty.
That renewal of strategic engagement is underscored by the broader context of Western-Israeli cooperation in containing Iranian ambitions and deterring Iranian-backed terrorist activity. Since the advent of the Iron Swords War and the multi-front assaults faced by Israel from Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen, the imperative to disrupt Iranian force projection and terror support has become a central organizing principle for Israeli and American security planners. The October 7th massacre perpetrated by Hamas, with ideological and material backing from Tehran, has left an indelible imprint on Israeli security doctrine: the necessity of preemptive action, technological superiority, and continuous intelligence operations against Iran and its proxies is now accepted by all branches of Israel’s defense establishment and its allies.
Azerbaijan’s calculus is, as ever, shaped by competing pressures from Iran, Russia, Turkey, and the West. The country’s unique geography—straddling the Caspian, bordering both Iran and Russia, and serving as a conduit for oil and gas to Europe—renders it a vital node in the ongoing contest for influence between the West and revisionist regimes. Baku’s posture is further complicated by internal dynamics: domestic politics, demographic concerns regarding Armenian and Azerbaijani minorities, and the constant need to manage relations with powerful neighbors. In this context, Azerbaijan’s military engagement with Iran cannot be isolated from its wider strategy of risk minimization, national interest maximization, and alliance balancing.
Looking forward, the continued evolution of the Iran-Azerbaijan relationship will remain a critical variable for Israel and its Western partners to monitor. Whether the latest exercise signifies a temporary accommodation, a transactional maneuver, or the beginnings of a more enduring partnership is a question that will depend on subsequent diplomatic, military, and energy developments. Israel’s approach, as articulated by its senior leadership, will blend diplomatic outreach, technological investment, and, where necessary, decisive security measures calibrated to prevent Iranian encirclement and safeguard its population against direct and proxy threats. The moral clarity underpinning Israel’s efforts—anchored in the defense of human life, the rule of law, and the fight against antisemitic terror—serves as both a guidepost and a bulwark against the narrative warfare waged by Iran and its proxies across the region and global public opinion.
As the Middle East contends with the continued fallout from the October 7th atrocity, the reverberations of Iran’s sponsorship of terrorism, and the rise of new axes of conflict and collaboration, the imperative for clear-eyed, fact-based reporting has never been greater. The West must remain vigilant to the ways in which changing partnerships—whether tactical or strategic—can alter the region’s security calculus and threaten the fragile architecture of peace and deterrence that has, for decades, limited the reach of Iranian aggression. Israel, for its part, faces the enduring challenge of maintaining alliances and deterrence as it navigates an arc of instability stretching from the Mediterranean to Central Asia. The joint exercise between Iran and Azerbaijan is a clear reminder that in this age of dynamic alignments, every regional development is both a signal and a test—a test not only of resolve, but of the values that Israel and its Western partners are sworn to defend.
