Uzbekistan in the news

OK, one more item before the free-wi-fi-having cafe closes down for the night and kicks me out. My sister thoughtfully sent me a virtual clipping from the Washington Post the other day - Jim Hoagland's column on the closure of the US airbase in Uzbekistan, titled "Ousted from Uzbekistan." This column also ran in the Moscow Times, which often reprints columns that deal with Russian or former-Soviet issues from influential US newspapers.

I couldn't find any mention of this by the Central Asia experts over at at Registan, although I'm sure they'll get around to it, since it seems significant to have a heavyweight columnist devote an entire piece to this often overlooked part of the world. Maybe they didn't bother because Hoagland's column is too generalist for them, plus it seems to basically be just a way for "official Washington" - Hoagland's phrase - to air its version of what happened:

Ousted From Uzbekistan
Our Global Strategy Trips Over Cold War Reflexes
By Jim HoaglandSunday, August 7, 2005; Page B07

If you can supply energy to world markets, do you really need the United States and its conflicting priorities and bureaucracies, along with all that yammering about human rights and democracy? For Islam A. Karimov, the dictatorial ruler of Uzbekistan, the answer is a big NO.

Karimov's recent order to the United States to cease operations at the K2 air base and pull its troops out of his Central Asian republic within six months came only after he had reached new understandings on energy and other subjects with the leaders of China, Russia and his immediate neighbors. Tyrant and butcher Karimov may be; fool he is not.

Karimov received assent or encouragement -- official Washington is not sure which -- from Russian President Vladimir Putin and from China's collective leadership to stick his thumb in Uncle Sam's eye by closing the base, a move that complicates the resupply of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. [...]

The speed and the studied shrug with which Washington greeted the Uzbek president's expulsion seem to reflect not only a bowing to Uzbek sovereignty but also an assessment that Karimov's political viability is running on empty. The former Soviet bureaucrat is playing a losing and possibly short-lived hand at home, in this view.

He superficially resembles a 21st-century Mobutu Sese Seko, Ferdinand Marcos or Erich Honecker. Those Cold War-era satraps became more trouble than they were worth to their superpower patrons when they were openly repudiated by their own people. Communicating their expendability was often more a matter of calculation than of conscience.

Because the United States is reaching so deeply into the former Soviet sphere of influence to fight Islamic extremism, Washington does not have wholly owned clients there. Actions or words from Washington that undermine Karimov (or his autocratic neighbors) also affect Putin's hold on power in the Kremlin in a direct way.

This makes Washington's support for human rights abroad a more complex but even more important undertaking than it was in the Cold War. How other nations, and particularly Islamic nations, treat their citizens is today the substance, not just the form, of international relations.

A 21st-centure Erich Honecker. Ouch. A zinger worthy of the wittiest wags in Foggy Bottom. The full text of the column (linked above) is definitely worth reading. I'm not really equipped to comment on the conclusions, but there do seem to be some insightful observations in the piece.

A rather different take on the developments in Uzbek-American relations was offered in a Moscow Times column last Friday ("Shifting Forces Along the Silk Road"), which offers more insight into China's role in the region. Definitely worth a read.