As the saying goes, only fools repeat the same things over and over but expect different results. Unfortunately, not just ordinary people but also big states frequently get entrapped in this snobbism. Overestimating itself, like people, the countries think that they can succeed in a project which other much stronger and wealthier countries failed. Currently, the best example of such a snobbish country is Iran.
As is known, Russia has been supporting and even feeding Armenia over for 30 years, since the inception of its independence. Russia attached great importance to Armenia to such an extent that it constructed all its projects in the region through Armenia. Previously, these two countries were strategic allies. However, despite all signed contracts and agreements, Russia has called Armenia a suitcase with a handle and tried to get rid of it, recently.
Surely, the second superpower in the world had thought that Armenia would take advantage of Russian support to develop itself in terms of military and economy. However, like a leech sucking, Armenia sucked Russian resources but did not develop. Eventually, the ever-being hunger of the suitcase without a handle turned into a burden to Russia. Simultaneously, Russia became insufficient for the Armenian ever-growing appetite, and the country started to look for new suitors, especially from the West. The European suitor, more precisely, France has been waiting for invitations for a long, but suddenly and unexpectedly new suitor from the East, i.e. Iran emerged.
Iran, which presents itself as the protector of Islam, especially Shias, commenced threatening Muslim Shia Azerbaijan on behalf of Christian Armenia. The so-called protector of Islam started to speak about long-forgotten territorial integrity. I say long-forgotten because Iran had not said anything for over thirty years when Azerbaijan’s territories were under the invasion of Armenia. Even the toothless and moribund lion of the east or, to put it more bluntly, Iran, which is almost isolated from the world and alien to the political prism of the principle of alliance, went further by stating that the territorial integrity of Armenia is its red line.
Following the political uphold, Iran started to speak about economic cooperation. To assist Hayastan, Iran constructed roads and bridges. The Persian Roads and Urban Development Minister, Mehrdad Bazrpash praised the cooperation, which actually was wasting the money of poor Iranian citizens, and even invited Armenian companies to participate in mega construction projects in Iran. The Minister pointed out that his country plans to build 4 million residential houses and he would be happy if Armenian construction companies partook in this construction boom. He impudently extolled the development of the construction sector in Armenia. However, Armenia imports roughly all construction materials from abroad. Besides, Armenia has not finished the highway starting from the Iranian border to the Georgian border for dozens of years. It seems the toothless lioness is not going to limit itself to only the wasting money in Armenia, but also aims to enrich Hay companies instead of local ones.
Obviously, Iran thinks Russia failed because they were not good at geopolitics and business. However, the reality is different. Russia is much better in geopolitics and wealthier than Iran. Russia is a cosmic country and owns a strong industry. However, it could not help Armenia. On the contrary, it mired but could save itself. Nevertheless, the toothless and moribund lion still did not leave the vixen alone.
Source : Azernews