| A few months ago, we described Qatar as a “cunning state”. Cunning means the quality or skill of being clever at planning something to reach your goals, even by tricking others. Lately, it has emerged that Azerbaijan has also resorted to cunning strategies to punch above its weight. Two recent events put Azerbaijan under the spotlight. Let’s start with the most recent one. Azeri President Ilham Aliyev met with Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi just minutes before the latter took off in a helicopter which crashed, killing all onboard. The occasion was the inauguration of a dam between the two countries, but the meeting was unusual because the relations between the two countries are complicated for several reasons. Scholars put the population of Azerbaijanis in Iran at between 12 million and 23 million—more than the population of Azerbaijan proper, which is 10 million. Tensions exist inside Iran because Iranian Azeris support Azerbaijan in the context of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, while Tehran officially sides with Armenia—because Turkey is Iran’s regional rival. In particular, if the Nakhchivan corridor is built, it would connect mainland Azerbaijan with its exclave and also with its ally Turkey, giving Ankara a transport springboard to implement some of its ambitious pan-Turkic goals. Another big reason is the special relationship between Azerbaijan and Israel, Tehran’s arch-foe. Israel calls Azerbaijan a “strategic partner” as Israel’s arms-for-energy trade with Azerbaijan has reportedly become a pillar of Israel’s national security strategy. More importantly, Azerbaijan provides logistics to Israel to spy on Iran. As the Israeli daily Haaretz wrote on 11 April, “the Israel-Azerbaijan relationship relies on an unholy trinity of oil, arms, and intelligence”. | 
