[lbo-talk] Russia, China & Central Asia countries now want US out?

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Tue Jul 5 21:13:47 PDT 2005


[Apropos the US in Central Asia discussion.]

http://www.juancole.com/2005/07/russia-china-central-asia-call-for-us.html

Juan Cole

Informed Comment

Wednesday, July 06, 2005

Russia, China, Central Asia Call for US Withdrawal

The members of something called the Shanghai Cooperation Council

<URL: http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0705/dailyUpdate.html> are

trying to push the United States back out of Central Asia. The SCO

consists of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, China, and

Russia. The US essentially came into their territories or spheres of

influence in 2001 to prosecute its war on al-Qaeda and the Taliban. At

the time, China and Russia appear to have acquiesced in part because

of their own struggles with Muslim radical movements in Chechnya and

Xinjiang, which al-Qaeda was encouraging. In part, the Americans may

have more or less bribed them behind the scenes. For the post-Soviet

Central Asian states themselves, an American military presence had the

attractions not only of protecting them from radical Islamists (who

are a tiny, tiny minority in long-Communist Central Asia), but also of

providing a counterweight to Russia, the military power in the region

since the mid-nineteenth century.

Islam Karimov and the other Central Asian rulers assumed that they

were dealing with the old realist Washington, which would trade them

acquiescence in their authoritarianism for use of bases.

In fact, the Bush administration has a messianic commitment to

destabilizing the area, under the rubric of "democratization."

Apparently it prefers failed states such as American-dominated

Afghanistan and Iraq to stable, even pro-American dictatorships. This

policy creates a key contradiction. Bush needs authoritarian states

such as Syria and Uzbekistan to fight radical Muslim groups. But even

as it seeks their help in this endeabor, it announces that it hopes to

toss their leaders out of power.

The persistent rumors that the United States ran a covert operation to

produce the crisis in the Ukraine, helping install the Yushchenko

supporters and to ensure the ouster of Kuchma and his would-be

successors, appears to have given leaders like Uzbekistan's Karimov

and Kazakhstan's Nursultan Nazarbayev a bad chill. The last straw for

them came when crowds overthrew Askar Akaev in Kyrgyzstan in March.

From the point of view of Astana and Tashkent, this event looked

suspiciously like the Ukraine reprised, and they appear to have seen

an American hand in it.

Whatever benefits the US is offering the Central Asians for use of

their bases are far outweighed by this new fear of the revolutionary

impact of Bush administration policies. Just as Syria abruptly ceased

helping the US against al-Qaeda when the Neocons pushed through new

sanctions on that country in Congress, so the Central Asians now want

out. Bush has not handled the Russians and the Chinese very

diplomatically, either, so they have every reason to cooperate with

Karimov and Nazarbayev in beginning a push for getting rid of the US.

There is a real question as to whether an elected Afghan parliament,

which will certainly be dominated by Muslim fundamentalists, will want

a US presence much longer, either. Even the pro-American Karzai

government offered scathing criticism over the recent civilian deaths

in a US air attack on suspected terrorist safe houses in eastern

Afghanistan.

URL: http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0705/dailyUpdate.html

Message to Bush: You just can't have it all.

posted by Juan @ 7/06/2005 06:09:00 AM



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