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Originally Posted by TripolySunni  Isn't Azerbeijan supposed to be a Muslim Shiite Country? How come Iran is siding with Armenia and israel is siding with Azerbaijan? |
This conflict is a reflection of the fact that the religious factor is very often irrelevant. A religion is not enough to form a nation nor even a strong alliance, something we should learn in Lebanon and in the whole middle-east.
There is a quite telling anecdote, concerning the relations between the "christian" western countries and the arabs or middle-eastern christian population. During his campaign in Egypt and the Levant, Napoléon Bonaparte was told by one of his lieutenants, to pay a visit to the christians natives and make deals with them in order to facilitate the military operations. It was nothing but a natural thing to do, for the lieutenant. They're christians and the native christians can't but ally with them. Napoléon answered him he was not interested by an alliance with them, but interested in making an alliance with non christians population. Why ? Because the christian minorities, which are weak in the Middle-East have no other choice but relying on the west in order to survive in case they were attacked by the others. So, no need to offer them anything, they will naturally come to the french and will never harm the french interests, while France can only look for its own interests without bothering about the native christians interests.
This was, indirectly may be, the US point of view in Irak regarding the christian population for instance.
As a conclusion, the religious factor is definitely irrelevant. Countries and nations have their own interests. Iran has its own, Azerbaïdjan too, Armenia too etc. Only the populations, easily manipulated with the religious propaganda tools used by the dictators and usurpators, believe in romantism...