Armenia’s upcoming constitutional referendum could become a problem for Tehran, which would like to see Armenia and Azerbaijan at odds.

Russia’s bid to reassert its grip on the South Caucasus is failing—and the reverberations extend well beyond Moscow. Iran has all but lost its northern flank to a US-Turkey-Azerbaijan axis, and it has no answer. Even as they remain targets of Iranian attacks, the Arab Gulf states are increasingly eyeing the Trans-Caspian region as a lever of counter-pressure against the Islamic Republic. What was once a Russian and Iranian sphere of influence is fast becoming a corridor for their rivals. 

The Ukrainian strike on an Iranian vessel in the Caspian Sea on July 31 expanded Kyiv’s campaign beyond the battlefield by targeting the logistics underpinning the Russia-Iran partnership. By projecting force into the Caspian basin, Ukraine challenged what Moscow and Tehran regarded as a secure corridor for military cargo and dual-use goods. 

More broadly, the incident underscored the growing convergence of the European and Middle Eastern theaters, as Iran’s support for Russia made it a more direct target of Ukrainian retaliation. The strike also raised the prospect that the Caspian Sea could become another contested arena linking the Ukraine War with the broader regional struggle involving Iran. 

The Iranian regime’s information operations project an image of triumph—having nominally “survived” its confrontation with the United States and Israel—but the strategic picture tells a different story. Russia, badly weakened by the war, can no longer anchor the northern buffer Iran once relied upon, leaving the Islamic Republic’s northern flank dangerously exposed. To its south, hostility with the Gulf Arab states has reached unprecedented intensity, especially after the collapse of the June 17 Memorandum of Understanding, when Washington resumed airstrikes on Iran following Tehran’s July 8 attack on three tankers. 

Since then, the United States has launched multiple rounds of strikes on Iran, steadily expanding its target set from military facilities to bridges, airports, and electrical infrastructure. Tehran has responded by widening the conflict itself—striking a power and desalination facility in Kuwait and hitting a military base in Jordan on July 17 that killed three US service members. 

Iran’s Houthi proxies also fired missiles at Saudi Arabia on July 13 and launched its own ballistic missile at a US military base on July 17. The deteriorating security situation has drawn nuclear-armed Pakistan more directly into the crisis: Islamabad has warned Tehran that any further attacks on Saudi territory—whether by Iran or the Houthis—would trigger Pakistan’s obligations under the mutual defense pact it signed with Riyadh in 2025. 

Adding to the tensions, Reuters reported on July 17 that Pakistan and Kuwait are discussing a broader defense partnership that could include troop deployments, fighter aircraft, and air defense cooperation in exchange for expanded energy ties and investment. 

Confident messaging aside, Iran is being squeezed from every direction—and the outcome of Armenia’s June 7 national election is one more piece of that deteriorating picture. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s victory in the elections represents a clear popular rejection of his Kremlin-aligned opponents—and a significant failure for Moscow’s effort to install friendlier leadership in Yerevan. It is also, by extension, a defeat for Tehran, whose regional partnerships have relied heavily on the same axis of resistance to Western and Turkish influence that Pashinyan’s electorate just repudiated. 

However, the election is a beginning, not an endpoint. What comes next will determine whether Armenia’s gradual westward drift becomes irreversible. It will also shape whether a durable peace with Azerbaijan finally takes hold. Just as importantly, it will test whether the United States can translate this moment into lasting influence in a region that Russia has long considered its backyard and that Iran has long counted on as a strategic landbridge. Washington and its Gulf allies should pay close attention and actively encourage Yerevan to move forward. 

Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party won roughly 49.8 percent of the vote, securing 64 seats in the new 105-seat National Assembly. While it retained its governing majority, Civil Contract lost seven of the 71 seats it previously held. The opposition immediately rejected the results, began mobilizing its supporters, and filed a legal challenge, which Armenia’s Constitutional Court rejected on July 4, upholding the results. 

The process has unfolded against a delicate diplomatic backdrop. On July 6, Pashinyan made his first foreign trip since the election, traveling to Russia to meet Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin. Mishustin signaled that Moscow is watching the new government closely—a pointed reminder of the stakes given the campaign’s pro-Western tilt. The Kremlin will likely continue seeking ways to exacerbate any divisions among the Armenian electorate, with efforts focused on stopping any attempts to amend the country’s constitution. 

With its electoral proxies defeated, Russia’s next objective is to prevent Pashinyan from pushing through a constitutional amendment, which is needed for finalizing the 2025 peace agreement with Azerbaijan. Here, the arithmetic gets complicated. Civil Contract fell short of the two-thirds supermajority required for constitutional changes. That gap really matters. The preamble to the current Armenian constitution references the country’s 1991 Declaration of Independence, issued when the USSR collapsed and Armenia and Azerbaijan, along with other states in the South Caucasus and Eurasia, became independent.   

The preamble includes language about the reunification of Armenia with “Nagorno-Karabakh.” This is the Russian place name. This territory was internationally recognized as belonging to Azerbaijan, as stated in 1993 UN Security Council resolutions 822, 853, 874, and 884, and has become the focal point of a bitter dispute between the two countries, one that stands to be resolved now, provided they can move forward with a peace agreement.

The main issue with the Armenian constitution, as it currently stands, is that any agreement signed by Pashinyan’s government may not bind future governments if they choose to reinterpret the constitutional provisions and once again make territorial claims on Karabakh. Without revisions to the constitution, the agreement will be just a temporary arrangement, and not the basis of permanent peace.

With a strong popular mandate behind him, Pashinyan has the political standing to present a constitutional referendum as a national endorsement of peace—if he can secure the votes.

Six seats short of a supermajority, Pashinyan’s most viable route is not to seek wholesale cooperation from the opposition, which is almost certainly out of reach. Instead, he is likely to work on building a narrow, issue-specific coalition around the provisions tied to the peace agreement. By framing the amendments as technical prerequisites for international normalization rather than partisan concessions, he lowers the political cost of supporting or at least abstaining for pragmatic opposition deputies. Even a handful of defections from non-aligned blocs could bridge the gap. 

This is where Washington comes in. The Trump administration could provide critical diplomatic cover, using its relationships with both Yerevan and Baku to reinforce the logic of constitutional adjustment as part of the broader settlement linked to the “Trump Route” connectivity framework. Supporting Armenia’s constitutional process isn’t just good regional diplomacy—it directly serves US strategic interests at a moment when both Russia and Iran are comparatively constrained in the South Caucasus. Anchoring peace, infrastructure development, and institutional reform within a Western-backed regional order would entrench American influence in ways that will outlast any single administration. 

The opportunities are real: a resolution to one of the post-Soviet world’s most intractable frozen conflicts, a more prosperous and stable Armenia, and proof that unresolved Soviet-era disputes can be settled rather than inherited indefinitely. Moscow is already working to prevent it all. Tehran is watching nervously. The question is whether Washington will work just as hard to make it happen. 

About the Author: Kamran Bokhari

Kamran Bokhari, PhD, is a senior resident fellow at the Middle East Policy Council and a senior director at the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy in Washington. A strategic forecaster, Bokhari teaches Eurasian geopolitics at Georgetown University’s Security Studies Program. Dr. Bokhari is the author of Political Islam in the Age of Democratization (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).

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