[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