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Bloomberg News gets kudos for being ahead of the pack in reporting Iran’s crude efforts to destabilize the pro-Western government of Azerbaijan, the oil-rich Caspian Sea nation that used to be called “northern Persia.”

Azeri-language programs of Iran’s Sahar 1 television channel, beamed into Azerbaijan over official protests, criticize the government’s domestic and foreign policies and say that Western companies are plundering the country’s oil riches. Iran’s Shiite religion is shared by two-thirds of the 9-million population in Azerbaijan; almost a quarter of Iran’s 75 million people are ethnic Azeri.

As I wrote last year, “Iran’s main strategic objectives are the Iraqi, the Azerbaijani, and eventually the Saudi oilfields, but its preferred and most successful methods are infiltration and subversion through the Shi’ite majorities who inhabit oil-rich regions on its borders.” The strategic problem lies in demographic and geological fundamentals: “Iran stands at the precipice of a demographic and economic tailspin. At current depletion rates Iran no longer will expor... >>>