Iran is currently facing the largest-scale protests since the 1979 revolution. The current regime that has been in power for decades seems willing to go to any lengths possible to preserve their grip over the country, including by massacring thousands of demonstrators. As of publication, government sources have admitted that at least 3,000 people have been killed already, likely meaning the true number is much higher.
But I am not a fortune teller nor an Iran expert, and this newsletter is not about Iran per se — I can’t predict how this current crisis will end or if the protesters will succeed in overthrowing the Iranian regime.
Nonetheless, from the perspective of the Caucasus, whatever happens in Iran will likely have wide-reaching spillover effects in our region.
The Caucasus has long been at the crossroads of three major powers — Iran, Turkey, and Russia, which have, at various times, warred or allied themselves to their competing empires.
Nowadays, Iran holds less influence over the region than Turkey or Russia, but is still an important figure for the South Caucasus, particularly for Armenia and Azerbaijan.
For Yerevan, Iran has been a crucial ally and has served as a bulwark against Armenia’s regional foes. Throughout the conflict with Azerbaijan and closure of the border with Turkey, Iran provided a gateway to the outside world.
Although a lasting peace with Azerbaijan appears to be on the horizon, Armenia’s interest in maintaining Iran as a stable ally — even in its current authoritarian state — would likely create concerns about what regime change in Iran could mean. Should the situation in Iran devolve into an armed conflict, refugees would probably stream towards Armenia in a dramatic escalation of what we saw during the 12-day Iran-Israel war in 2025.
At the same time, an Iran free of the ayatollah’s regime, particularly one that could democratise and shift its orientation to the West, would likely provide untold benefits to Armenia and the rest of the region.
For Azerbaijan, the situation is more complex. Iran has a large ethnic Azerbaijani population — including current President Masoud Pezeshkian — that has at times chafed under the rule of Tehran and sought more autonomy. The authoritarian nature of both Iran and Azerbaijan have largely kept those tensions under wraps, but a sudden change of the regime in Tehran could shift that calculation for the millions of Iranian Azerbaijanis.
More importantly, I think that the regime (can we say dynasty yet?) of President Ilham Aliyev does not want to see the status quo in Iran fundamentally altered. Aliyev has spent considerable effort courting the West and portraying Azerbaijan as a stable regional power with oil, and would likely not want his country’s position supplanted by its much larger neighbour (with more oil) should the Iranian regime fall and a more Western-oriented one take its place.
This could also impact the entire delicately-negotiated status of Azerbaijan as a key player in the Middle Corridor.
One of the crucial outcomes, at least so far, of the Washington agreements between Azerbaijan and Armenia, has been the project to create the Trump Route (TRIPP) connecting Azerbaijan to its exclave of Nakhchivan through Armenia. As Iran is closed to the US, this route through Azerbaijan and Armenia provides sea-land access between the Black Sea to the Caspian and into Asia. However, a Western-oriented Iran would likely offer more attractive trade routes, connecting the Caspian Sea to the Indian Ocean, as well the routes through Iran to existing rail networks in Turkey.
As Azerbaijani OC Media contributor Javid Agha put it, ‘If Iran, an oil rich country of 90 million becomes secular and Western oriented, who needs Aliyev?’.
While not a close ally, Georgia’s friendly ties to the Iranian regime have caused some irritation in the US, and along with Tbilisi’s courting of China, have likely contributed to the unwillingness of President Donald Trump’s administration to fully normalise relations with Georgia.
Finally, it is clear that Russia does not want to see the regime in Iran fall. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova has already called the current protest movement an attempt at a ‘colour revolution’, the term typically used to imply Western involvement.
Iran is one of the few friends that Russia has left, and particularly in the first years of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, was an important supplier of drones and weapons. After already seeing Syria’s Bashar al-Assad toppled — and more recently Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro — Russia’s circle has grown increasingly small. For now, these are all just predictions and semi-informed observations, but be assured that we at OC Media are following the events in Iran closely and will work to provide our readers with what you need to know about how whatever happens will impact our region.
