If the US wanted to get out of Iraq they could and would. All that has taken place in Iraq is but one battle in a larger war involving many countries and both military and ‘peaceful’ takeovers as detailed in Brzezinski’s ‘The Grand Chessboard’, they don’t want to leave. #msg-6708204
-Am
Why withdrawal is possible By Mark LeVine
Jun 30, 2005
As calls to set a timetable for withdrawing American troops from Iraq grow with each new casualty, President George W Bush and other critics of such a move argue vigorously that announcing such a deadline would grant the insurgents a major political and strategic victory: the former by vindicating the violent, even terroristic methodology of the insurgency itself, the latter by allowing rebels to bide their time and overwhelm government troops once American forces depart.
However convincing at face value, these arguments raise the question: are the only options in Iraq maintaining an unpopular and costly occupation, or handing the country over to "former members of Saddam Hussein's regime, criminal elements and foreign terrorists" (as Bush describes them)?
The answer is manifestly no, and the fact so few people within the corridors of power can imagine an alternative policy reveals a powerful yet fallacious line of reasoning at the heart of arguments to "stay the course" in Iraq: that a US troop withdrawal would automatically leave a security vacuum in its place.
But such an outcome is by no means a foregone conclusion; the problem is that few Americans, especially politicians, are willing to consider the alternative: apologize to the Iraqi people for an invasion and occupation that (whatever our intentions) has gone terribly wrong; ask the United Nations to take over the management of the country's security, lead negotiations to end the insurgency, and oversee redevelopment aid; and leave as soon as a sufficient number of replacement forces are in place.
There are four reasons why such a development, however distasteful to the Bush administration and many Americans, is the best hope for achieving the peace and democracy most everyone wants to bring to Iraq.
First, it is increasingly clear that the insurgency is unwinnable as long as the US remains in Iraq. Even Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld now admits that it could take a dozen years to defeat it. Given such a forecast, he explains that "Coalition forces, foreign forces are not going to repress that insurgency. We're going to create an environment that the Iraqi people and the Iraqi security forces can win against that insurgency."
Is this our gift to the Iraqi people, what 1,700 American soldiers have died for - a cancerous insurgency that will devour the energy, revenue and personnel of the Iraqi government for the foreseeable future? In most any other country, such an admission by one of the war's chief architects would lead to his resignation, or even indictment for what former senior Iraqi Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) official Larry Diamond describes (in his new book Squandered Victory) as the "criminal negligence" of the US-led occupation.
The fact that US diplomats have had secret talks with insurgents confirms that the Bush administration is worried that it cannot defeat the insurgency and is exploring the option of a "peace with honor" to extricate America from what even the president (jokingly, no doubt) calls the Iraqi "quagmire". Must we repeat rather than learn from the disastrous history of our withdrawal from Vietnam a generation ago?
Indeed, if the US is talking to insurgents, others can too - particularly others who haven't been involved in the occupation of Iraq and all the disastrous consequences it has led to in so many areas of life in the country. While some elements of the insurgency (particularly the criminals, Ba'athists and foreign jihadis cited by the president) want to transform Iraq into some sort of neo-Taliban state, the clear majority of insurgents are ordinary Iraqis who see themselves as patriots defending their country and will lay down their arms once coalition forces have left, as long as their leaders are involved in negotiating the temporary presence of peacekeeping forces necessary to maintain order.
Second, while Republicans have rightly criticized systematic corruption at the United Nations, the oil-for-food scandal pales in comparison with the level of corruption in post-invasion Iraq. Whether it's $9 billion in cash literally gone missing from CPA offices, repeated no-bid contracts to Halliburton and even the managers of the Abu Ghraib prison, or the smaller-scale but ubiquitous corruption infecting every sector of the Iraqi economy under our tutelage, the US has proven itself incapable of managing the reconstruction and development of the country or supporting an environment in which Iraqis can do it themselves.
A new international regime, which separates the management of the country's security from its reconstruction and the immense profits (and potential for malfeasance) tied to both is the sine qua non for establishing a democratic future for the country. The UN system can't do it alone, but with a sufficient level of supervision and expertise by donor countries and Iraqi professionals, it can help Iraqis rebuild the country with their own skill, labor and resources. In such a scenario it will be much easier to persuade countries such as France, Germany and others who largely stayed clear of involvement in the invasion and occupation to contribute the necessary funds and personnel to enable Iraq's stability and reconstruction. More important, it will give Iraqis a working stake in the peaceful development of their country.
Third, most Iraqis and other critics of the occupation believe the US has no intention of withdrawing its troops from Iraq or relinquishing its de facto control of the country's all-important petroleum resources. Bush declared in his speech on Tuesday night that "as Iraqis stand up, we will stand down", but such blithe declarations are belied by the massive construction going on at US bases across the country and remarks by senior US officials, who have admitted that we intend (with Iraq's "permission" of course) to station tens of thousands of troops in more or less permanent bases across the country for the foreseeable future.
All that's needed is a Status of Forces Agreement signed by an Iraqi government that could not survive without a continued US presence - or in lieu of that, a security situation which makes asking us to leave practically impossible in the foreseeable future - to realize the grandest aspirations of neo-conservatives and security hawks alike: a large and long-term US presence in the heart of the world's major oil producing region as we enter the age of peak oil.
Such a situation might seem ideal in the context of a new cold war with an energy-hungry China, but it would likely fuel a much hotter war against a mushrooming pan-Islamic insurgency across the Muslim world. The US would be much more secure if it took the hundreds of billions of dollars being spent in Iraq and devoted them to developing sustainable alternative energy technologies and transforming the global economic system so that our standard of living no longer depends on billions of people living on $2 a day or less, and entire world regions such as Africa and the Middle East structurally marginalized from the formal flows of money and goods in the globalized economy.
Fourth, an insurmountable collection of evidence is emerging that American forces have systematically committed war crimes in Iraq and continue to violate international law in their actions across the country. The longer the US remains, the greater the chances that senior officials will face criminal charges, or at least international censure, for the conduct of the invasion and occupation of the country.
While it is perhaps unlikely that senior officials will ever stand trial for their actions in an international venue, the loss of American prestige and respect across the world that our actions have brought on is incalculable. Moreover, when tied - quite naturally - by people across the global south to our support for the policies associated with the dominant neo-liberal model of globalization, the Iraqi occupation and the increasingly open imperial endeavor it represents has contributed to the victories of populist anti-American candidates across Latin America, and now Iran.
Even those who support a timetable for withdrawing American troops might respond negatively to the suggestion that America apologize for its invasion and occupation of Iraq. Certainly, the president's speech before the troops at Fort Bragg offered no hint of remorse for the pain and suffering the invasion brought to Iraq.
Such knee-jerk patriotism disappears, however, when you actually visit Iraq, as I did (that is, without a massive security detail and living with Iraqis), and see the disaster that the occupation has produced first-hand. Observed close up, without the filter of an obsequious news media, the overwhelmingly negative consequences of the occupation become impossible to ignore: the 100,000 dead (the majority of them civilians); wide-scale violations of human, political and civil rights; the destruction of the country's health, education and other crucial social systems; the massive unemployment; a violent and destabilizing insurgency that is likely to last a generation or more; the rending of a delicate social fabric that managed to survive a bloody British occupation, several wars, and the even bloodier rule of Saddam Hussein (which we should never forget was made possible in good measure by decades of support from administrations as far back as President John F Kennedy).
In Alcoholics Anonymous, apologizing and making amends for the hurt one has done to others are among the most important steps in the long path toward sobriety. Clearly, Bush, who believes Iraqis should "put the past behind them", isn't about to engage in soul searching about the mission and consequences of our Iraq adventure. But if Americans can admit to - and in doing so, comprehend - the damage our government has wrought in Iraq in our name and with our consent, we will take an important first step in ending our addiction to an unsustainable corporate-led, consumer-driven culture, and the wars and systematic violence, oppression and exploitation it requires world-wide. In doing so we will begin the long but necessary task of building a sustainable and peaceful future, for Iraq, for ourselves, and for the world at large.
Mark LeVine, professor of modern Middle Eastern history, culture, and Islamic studies at the University of California, Irvine, and author of Why They Don't Hate Us: Lifting the Veil on the Axis of Evil, Oneworld Publications, 2005.
Russia, Uzbeks plan first joint military exercises
Background Uzbekistan's tyrannical President Islam Karimov had early profiled himself as a staunch friend of the Washington "war on terror", offering a former Soviet airbase for US military actions, including the attack on the Taliban in Afghanistan in late 2001. Many considered Karimov too close to Washington to be in danger. He had made himself a "good" tyrant in Washington's eyes.
That's also no longer a sure thing. In May, Rice demanded that Karimov institute "political reforms" following violent prison uprisings and subsequent protests over conditions in the Ferghana Valley region in Andijan. Karimov has fiercely resisted independent inquiry into allegations his troops shot and killed hundreds of unarmed protesters. He insists the uprisings were caused by "external" radical Muslim fundamentalists allied with the Taliban and intent on establishing an Islamic caliphate in Uzbekistan's Ferghana Valley bordering Kyrgystan.
While the ouster of Karimov is unclear for the moment, leading Washington backers of Karimov's "democratic reform" have turned into hostile opponents. As one US commentator expressed it, "The character of the Karimov regime can no longer be ignored in deference to the strategic usefulness of Uzbekistan." Karimov has been targeted for a color revolution in the relentless Washington "war on tyranny".
In mid-June, Karimov's government announced changes in terms for the US to use Uzbekistan's Karshi-Khanabad military airbase, including a ban on night flights. Karimov is moving demonstrably closer to Moscow, and perhaps also to Beijing, in the latest chapter of the new "Great Game" for geopolitical control over Eurasia. #msg-6825938
-Am
Russia, Uzbeks plan first joint military exercises 29 Jun 2005 10:51:48 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Michael Steen
MOSCOW, June 29 (Reuters) - Russia is to conduct joint military exercises with Uzbekistan, Russia's defence minister said on Wednesday in a further sign of Moscow's growing support for the Central Asian state after a bloody government crackdown.
The Uzbek-Russian manoeuvres, which Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov said would be the first since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, come as human rights groups are calling on Washington to review its own military presence in the country.
The suppression of a rebellion in the eastern town of Andizhan last month killed around 500 people including unarmed civilians, according to witnesses, and has been branded a massacre by rights groups and Western politicians.
The Uzbek government says its troops opened fire on "terrorists" and puts the death toll at 176, an account of events that both Russia and China have backed.
"It's absurd to say that troops opened fire on a peaceful crowd of demonstrators in Andizhan," Ivanov was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies after a meeting with Uzbek President Islam Karimov.
Witnesses in Andizhan on May 13, including a Reuters correspondent, said they saw troops fire at people in the centre of town where armed rebels had occupied a building and unarmed civilians had gathered, some of whom were demonstrating.
Ivanov said the military exercises would be held over the summer. He also backed Karimov's view that a "base of terrorists" from outside the former Soviet Union was trying to destabilise Central Asia, Itar-Tass news agency reported.
Speaking on Tuesday after meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin, Karimov implicitly accused the West of being behind the violence in Andizhan, saying the rebellion was a plot.
"Its script writers and directors have used religious, extremist, radical forces, which they themselves describe as terrorists whom they successfully fought in Afghanistan and whom they now fight in Iraq," he said, without naming any countries.
RUSSIAN, CHINESE SUPPORT
The authoritarian leader, who has ruled the mostly Muslim country of 26 million since 1989, had previously sought close relations with both the United States and Russia, despite long-running Western criticism of his human rights record.
Since Andizhan he has increasingly turned to Russia.
"I want to express my respect for this man," Karimov was quoted by Tass as saying in praise of Putin, a former KGB spy.
"He's the kind of man you would go on a mission behind enemy lines with," he said, using a popular Russian idiom.
Although Washington has not formally changed its policy on Uzbekistan, President George W. Bush has joined international calls for an independent inquiry into the Andizhan rebellion, a proposal Karimov has rejected.
Since that call, the Uzbek government has limited U.S. military use of the Karshi-Khanabad airbase, which supports operations in neighbouring Afghanistan, forcing Washington to temporarily shift some flights to Kabul.
The Andizhan revolt was triggered by the trial of 23 local businessmen whom the authorities accused of religious extremism. Many residents said they believed the trial was an attempt to grab property from the men, significant local employers.
Uzbekistan, which tolerates only state-sponsored Islam, has jailed thousands of political and religious dissidents, human rights groups say. Karimov has said tough policies are needed to fight Islamists seeking to overthrow the secular government.
Chevron is the former company of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
-Am
Venezuela moves against Shell, Chevron in tax probe Fri Jul 15, 2005 1:40 AM BST
By Pascal Fletcher and Matthew Robinson CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuela on Thursday ordered international oil major Shell (RD.AS: Quote, Profile, Research)(SHEL.L: Quote, Profile, Research) to pay nearly $131 million (74.5 million pounds) in back taxes, and also confiscated financial data from U.S.-based Chevron Corp. (CVX.N: Quote, Profile, Research) in a tax crackdown.
The actions announced by national tax authority SENIAT against the two foreign oil companies formed part of a campaign by left-wing President Hugo Chavez's government to tighten control over Venezuela's strategic oil sector.
Both Shell and Chevron said they were cooperating with SENIAT in the tax probe but Shell said it had "paid all taxes mandated by the law".
"Anglo-Dutch Shell was given notification that it should pay $281 billion bolivars (74.5 million pounds) relating to income tax dues that were not paid in the period 2001-2004," SENIAT said in a statement.
The statement added that if Shell complied with the payment demand within the 15 days established by law, it would only have to pay 10 percent in interest and fines. If it failed to do this, the penalties could increase to up to 250 percent.
SENIAT said its inspectors also temporarily confiscated data from Chevron Corp. from its offices in the western oil city of Maracaibo because the U.S. company had failed to produce it on request. The tax authority was seeking financial and accounting information from the company.
"We intervened in their administrative section to take information from their systems ... because they weren't giving it to us," Jose Cedillo, SENIAT manager for special tax contributors, told Reuters by telephone.
Cedillo said the tax authority would advise two more foreign oil companies next week that they owed back taxes but he declined to identify them or give details.
"The investigation is moving forward," he added.
Cedillo said SENIAT inspectors had requested the presence of a state prosecutor to gain entry to the Chevron offices and they downloaded data from the company's computers.
The intervention only affected Chevron's administrative offices and not its oil operations, Cedillo added. Continued ...
China launches new expedition plan to Antarctic Oil
This ought to heat up nicely - think Klondike with nuclear weapons.
-Am
www.chinaview.cn 2005-07-27 23:04:44
China launches new expedition plan to Antarctic
BEIJING, July 27 (Xinhuanet) -- China is hoping to improve its advantageous position in scientific research in the Antarctica by launching a new expedition to the remote region.
A press release provided by the Office for Polar Expedition with the State Oceanic Administration (SOA), said that Chinese scientists will complete a range of tasks in a new expedition to Grove Mountains in Antarctica.
These tasks to be finished in the expedition plan, also known as "Grove Plan", which was launched on Tuesday, will include collection of meteorites, geological surveys, mapping, research onthe evolution of the icecap, the installation of an automatic meteorological station and the construction of a sanctuary in the Grove Mountains.
The Grove Mountains are 460 km away from China's Zhongshan Station in Antarctica. Enditem
Reference: Of course, disputes over oil in the Falklands might be used as a springboard for wrangling over oil exploration in the greater Antarctic region, where Argentina and Great Britain have additional overlapping claims.
French troops arrive in ex-Soviet state of Kyrgyzstan
The presence of the French troops lends a feeling that the Kyrgyzstan base is a true coalition base designed to fight the ‘war on terror’ and not for it’s more important reason to deny China easy land access to either Russia, the Middle East or to the oil and gas fields of the Caspian Sea. Not to mention the U.S. is digging in.
-Am
French troops arrive in ex-Soviet state of Kyrgyzstan
17:05 2005-08-02 Some 50 French military personnel arrived at an anti-terror coalition air base in Kyrgyzstan to participate in local security operations before parliamentary elections in Afghanistan.
U.S. Air Force Captain Alysia Harvey said the French air force troops had arrived during the past few days, and planned to stay for about three months at the U.S.-led base outside the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek.
Harvey declined to say how many and what type of aircraft the French had brought, "for operational security reasons."
The Manas base hosts about 1,000 U.S. troops to support combat operations in Afghanistan.
Authorities in neighboring Uzbekistan demanded last week that U.S. troops pull out of a base in the country's south within 180 days, the AP reports.
On July 5, at the summit of the six-nation (China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), held at the Kazakh capital Astana, a joint declaration called on the US-led, anti-terror coalition to set a timetable for its withdrawal of troops and the temporary use of infrastructure in Central Asian countries. The declaration pointed out that since the Afghan situation was now under control, the US had no reason to maintain bases in the region. In addition to the facilities in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, the US has military overflight rights with Tajikistan.
In Kyrgyzstan, observers claim that President Kurmanbek Bakiyev was forced to reconsider because of some attractive offer from overseas that he couldn't refuse. Information was leaked to the press of the alleged promise of a $200 million interest-free loan. #msg-7192477
A geopolitical pattern has become clear over the past months. One-by-one, with documented overt and covert Washington backing and financing, new US-friendly regimes have been put in place in former Soviet states which are in a strategic relation to possible pipeline routes from the Caspian Sea.
The strategic issue of geopolitical control over Eurasia looms large. And increasingly it is clear that not only Putin's Russia is an object of the new Washington "war on tyranny". It is becoming clear to most now that the grand design in Eurasia on the part of Washington is not to pre-empt Osama bin Laden and his "cave dwellers".
The current Washington strategy targets many Eurasian former Soviet republics which per se have no known oil or gas reserves. What they do have, however, is strategic military or geopolitical significance for the Washington policy of dominating the future of Eurasia.
That policy has China as its geopolitical, economic and military fulcrum. A look at the Eurasian map and at the target countries for various US-sponsored color revolutions makes this unmistakably clear. To the east of the Caspian Sea, Washington in one degree or another today controls Pakistan, Afghanistan, potentially Kyrgystan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. These serve as a potential US-controlled barrier or buffer zone between China and Russian, Caspian and Iranian energy sources. Washington is out to deny China easy land access to either Russia, the Middle East or to the oil and gas fields of the Caspian Sea. #msg-6825938
Russia and China delivered a one-two punch to Washington's ambitions in Central Asia on the eve of the G8 summit with a joint statement on "international order" followed by a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (S.C.O.) that was hostile to U.S. interests. While this combination was not enough to knock the U.S. out of the region, it was the most forceful challenge to U.S. interests in Central Asia since the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. [See: "Intelligence Brief: Shanghai Cooperation Organization"]
Seeking to prevent any further damage to Washington's position in the "Great Game," last week U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld traveled to the region to shore up support for maintaining its bilateral agreements with the key players. This was followed by Uzbekistan announcing a deadline for U.S. withdrawal from a military base in its territory. These moves indicate that even though fighting in Afghanistan has yet to cool down, the traditional power politics of Central Asia are heating up.
China and Russia Coordinate Their Central Asian Policies
Before the S.C.O. meeting, Russia's and China's leaders met at the Kremlin on July 1 to discuss their goals in Central Asia and the upcoming G8 summit. The meeting signaled a shift toward greater cooperation between the two states, completely solved their long-standing border disputes from the legal perspective, and laid the foundation for greater integration of their state-controlled oil companies and banking sectors. One reason that the atmosphere in the Kremlin was so unusually amiable was the perception that a shared threat loomed larger than their differences in policy goals; that threat was Washington's role in Central Asia.
The "Joint Statement of the People's Republic of China and the Russian Federation Regarding the International Order of the 21st Century," signed by Chinese President Hu Jintao and Russian President Vladimir Putin on July 2, addresses U.S. hegemony in several less-than-oblique passages. The text emphasizes "non-interference in internal affairs," "mutual respect" for other nations' "sovereignty," and stresses the role of "multipolarity" in dealing with conflicts.
In a passage aimed at Washington's perceived encroachment in Central Asia, the document states, "The peoples of all countries should be allowed to decide the affairs of their own countries, and world affairs should be decided through dialogue and consultation on a multilateral and collective basis. The international community should thoroughly renounce the mentality of confrontation and alignment, should not pursue the right to monopolize or dominate world affairs, and should not divide countries into a leading camp and a subordinate camp." This last statement could also easily be read as a preemptive dismissal of the G8 on the eve of the Scotland meeting. Though Russia is now a member and China an observer of the grouping, they feel that the organization is dominated by the West's agenda.
This dismissal of Western-style multilateralism is further expanded in a passing broadside aimed at the World Bank and the I.M.F. and their emphasis on reform in exchange for aid or loans: "The international community should establish an economic and trade regime that is comprehensive and widely accepted and that operates through the means of holding negotiations on an equal footing, discarding the practice of applying pressure and sanctions to coerce unilateral economic concessions, and bringing into play the roles of global and regional multilateral organizations and mechanisms."
Beijing and Moscow resent the West demanding economic reforms before further integrating China and Russia into the existing globalization power structures. They wish to present an alternative marketplace for developing countries to sell their goods -- one that does not tie economic access to reform or transparency. China has been able to successfully use the widely expected expansion of its domestic market to sell this alternative source of revenue to countries irked by the I.M.F. or World Bank, from South America to Africa. Now it hopes to further cement such a relationship with the states of Central Asia.
In the joint statement, China and Russia sent a clear message to the other members of the S.C.O. -- Washington poses a threat to Central Asia's sovereignty; China and Russia can offer a similar economic and security package, only it will be designed to preserve the current status quo not to encourage market economies or democratic reforms. Fearing future waves of "color" revolutions in the region, these states were eager to receive this message.
A Bigger and Stronger S.C.O.
On July 5, the members of the S.C.O. -- China, Russia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan -- met in Astana, Kazakhstan to discuss the changing political situation in Central Asia. While previous meetings focused nearly exclusively on the "three evil forces" -- terrorism, separatism and extremism -- and were dominated by China's desire to control the Uighur population in its Xinjiang region and protect its access to energy resources, this meeting demonstrated that the organization, which represents nearly 50 percent of the world's population when including members with observer status, desires to be a serious force in international affairs. This can be seen in the granting of observer status to India (at Russia's request), Pakistan (at China's insistence) and Iran (to the delight of all members).
The environment of the S.C.O. meeting was most influenced by the reaction to Uzbekistan's violent suppression of the May rebellion in Andijan. Western criticism of Uzbek President Islam Karimov's tactics brought to the surface the fears that the clan-based governments of Central Asia might fall in a wave of "color" revolutions, similar to that of Ukraine's "orange" revolution. Russia and China provided blanket support for Karimov after the suppression, while Washington could only offer nuanced criticism, fearing that intense criticism of Karimov would result in the loss of access to the Karshi-Khanabad air base, or K2, used to support U.S. operations in Afghanistan; nevertheless, the loss of this base now appears a likely scenario.
Washington's criticism was enough to spread fear throughout the ruling clans of Central Asia that the U.S. is engaged in covert operations to undermine or overthrow the current ruling regimes. This fear does not even escape Kyrgyzstan's subsequently elected government -- which swept into power in a similar manner as Ukraine's government -- because its support still rests on a shaky foundation of clan alliances.
In this environment, the S.C.O. sought to limit Washington's presence in the region -- Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan shifted their support to China and Russia in order to protect their sovereignty from U.S. meddling. The joint declaration issued at the end of the summit took aim at Washington by rejecting attempts at "monopolizing or dominating international affairs" and insisting on "non-interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states." The members further urged the U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan to declare a timetable for withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Uzbek and Kyrgyz bases in the region that were established to support the Afghan operations. The Central Asian states see it in their interests to fill the power vacuum that the withdrawals would create with that of China and Russia, which they believe would better ensure the longevity of their regimes.
Top U.S. General Richard B. Myers summed up Washington's interpretation of the shift in blunt terms: "It looks to me like two very large countries were trying to bully some smaller countries." Ten days later, Rumsfeld landed in Kyrgyzstan to ensure that the world's only superpower wasn't elbowed out of the region.
Washington Pushes Back
The U.S. secretary of defense's visit to Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan was aimed at shoring up support for the continuation of the U.S. military presence in each country, which was successful at least for the mid-term. Kyrgyzstan hosts a U.S. military base at the Manas air base, and Tajikistan offers the U.S. military and N.A.T.O. fly-over rights and hosts a small contingent of French soldiers involved in Afghan operations. French Defense Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie was in Dushanbe on July 21 to firm up that arrangement. Notably, Rumsfeld did not visit Uzbekistan, the other S.C.O. member-state that hosts a U.S. military base. Whether his absence was the result of an Uzbek request or a calculation of Washington's, it demonstrated how the U.S. plans to address the shifting power relations in the region.
Washington has approached Central Asia on bilateral terms, never treating the S.C.O. members as a bloc. In terms of leverage in the relations, this shifts the fulcrum to Washington's advantage. China and Russia encourage the S.C.O. states to act multilaterally in an effort to limit Washington's reach. Rumsfeld's trip demonstrated Washington's ability to act bilaterally with Kyrgyzstan, which has a newly elected government and has yet to fully congeal its foreign policy, and Tajikistan, which has traditionally been the S.C.O. member that follows a balanced approach with its foreign suitors.
Recently, the relations between Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan have shown the strengths of Washington's bilateral approach. When over 500 Uzbeks crossed over into Kyrgyzstan following the crushing of protesters in Andijan, Kyrgyzstan initially reacted instep with the Uzbek government. Eighty-seven Uzbek refugees were sent back, prompting outrage from the U.N. and Washington. This led to negotiations between the U.N. and officials in Kyrgyzstan, which, by Washington's design, left out any avenue for input from Uzbekistan. On July 29, a plane with 440 Uzbek refugees left Kyrgyzstan for Romania. This demonstrated Washington's ability to directly influence the geopolitics of Central Asia only a few weeks after the united front presented by the S.C.O. called for a U.S. withdrawal.
However, in dealing with Karimov's government in Uzbekistan, Washington's bilateral approach is no longer effective, in part because of its success in Kyrgyzstan. The Uzbek suspicion of Washington's involvement in the Kyrgyzstan revolution and uprising in Andijan has caused Karimov to throw his government's support behind China's and Russia's vision for the region. As such, the same day that the plane carried refugees out of Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan asked Washington to leave the K2 air base within 180 days. The immediate reaction from Washington was to hold back on sending a high-level representative to renegotiate the arrangement while waiting for things to "cool down."
This seems to suggest that the U.S. is leaning toward the future goal of regime change in Uzbekistan and is willing to sacrifice the air base if necessary. This does not mean that Washington will cut off all relations with Uzbekistan, but if it becomes apparent that future negotiations will not lead to an extension of the air base use agreement, Washington can be expected to pursue further bilateral agreements with the other governments in Central Asia to isolate Karimov's government.
Conclusion
Beijing, Moscow and Washington are once again using Central Asia, the setting for the "Great Game" between Tsarist Russia and Victorian England over 150 years ago, as their game board in a region rarely neglected by the world's great powers. In the contemporary version of the game, Washington approaches each state bilaterally, offering incentives to support the operations in Afghanistan while undermining the consensus put forth at the recent S.C.O. meeting.
China and Russia are acting in tandem to shore up support for S.C.O. policies by offering blanket support for the current regimes and implicitly calling attention to U.S.-led efforts to undermine their governments. The states hosting the game board will continue to swing their support from China and Russia to the U.S., and back again, so long as they keep their hold on power. The past month has seen a flurry of activity in the Great Game, and it can be expected that things will not cool down anytime soon.
Report Drafted By: Adam Wolfe
The Power and Interest News Report (PINR) is an independent organization that utilizes open source intelligence to provide conflict analysis services in the context of international relations. PINR approaches a subject based upon the powers and interests involved, leaving the moral judgments to the reader. This report may not be reproduced, reprinted or broadcast without the written permission of inquiries@pinr.com. All comments should be directed to content@pinr.com.
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