Quit terror war base, Uzbekistan dictator orders US special forces
By Alec Russell in WashingtonUzbekistan has ordered the Pentagon to leave a military base that has played an important role in its war on terror as tensions with Washington over the country’s human rights record have abruptly come to a head.
Tashkent has given American forces 180 days to leave the Karshi-Khanabad base, a key staging post and hub for American troops fighting in Afghanistan and trying to track down al-Qa’eda fighters.
I gave a sarcastic “thank you” to all those who made a big push for the US to effectively break ties with Uzbekistan after the Andijan massacre, and I’m mighty frustrated that I was right. The US has scolded Uzbekistan, withdrawn aid money, and yet expected to keep an air base there. We now have effectively zero influence in the region. More from Andy at Registan; Nathan has already weighed in; and the jerks at the New York Times have titled their headline, “No Harm Seen in Loss of Base in Uzbekistan,” whereas the UK Times Online has a far more accurate analysis: “It was also a victory for Russia and China, which see resource-rich Central Asia as their strategic backyard and have been lobbying for an end to the US presence there. ”
Thanks for nothing, assholes. You know who you are.
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Comments to this entry
Martey
August 1, 2005
11:35 am
Alfred Russel Wallace
August 1, 2005
2:07 pm
Eddie
August 1, 2005
2:36 pm
Will we deal with them as an international pariah (Zimbabwe, Burma) or a nation capable of rehab (ala Sudan)?
(By the way, CA's analysis of Garang's "accident" death in Sudan would be greatly appreciated)
Nathan
August 1, 2005
6:20 pm
I would say a palace coup by Western-oriented ministers or those more interested in emulating Kazakh triangulation is as likely (if not more likely) as a democratic revolution. It may not be terribly bad news for China and Russia, but it would not exactly be good.
J. Kende
August 1, 2005
7:04 pm
Nathan
August 1, 2005
7:32 pm
I think this is a very important distinction because certain folks, Curzon for example, are talking about these developments as if someone in the US has royally mucked things up. If one understands that the official Uzbek position right now is that the United States orchestrated the uprising in Andijon to overthrow the Uzbek government in a new "color revolution," it becomes hard to believe there was much we could do to salvage the relationship or to accept the price that we'd have to pay.
If the reporting is accurate, DoD said that the base wasn't crucial, so it apparently wasn't worth bending over for Karimov and believing his increasingly silly line of policy b.s.
I think that we would definitely like to maintain a relationship to try to help Uzbekistan's government avert a messy collapse. Despite Karimov's fears, it's simply irresponsible to want his government to collapse when there is nothing but an unknown to succeed him. However, we do want him to allow genuine economic and political reform to avert a bloody and chaotic period of interregnum in Uzbekistan.
Curzon
August 2, 2005
1:30 am
Right -- but that Uzbekistani position didn't come from nowhere. How did we get to the Uzbek's begging us to get involved in October 2001 to being the first country in ten years (since the Philippines) to kick us out? Pure paranoia? Are they that crazy? Or, alternatively, was there any rational thought in that decision.
There was of course lots of thinking behind this -- they no longer felt a strategic alliance with the US was worth it. I blame State for their pointless, harping criticism. Then we suspend what little aid we give them. No constructive critiques or proactive engagement of the regime, but criticizing Karimov at every chance we get to appeal to bums like Amnesy International and other various left-wing groups. Uzbekistan is bad, but how about equally nasty strategic partners like, say, Equitorial Guineau.
And the people who should have given Bush bank for finger-wagging Karimov -- the aforementioned leftie NGOs -- are too excited about imaginary oil and natural gas pipeline conspiracies and other Halliburton-Bush nonsense to care, plus the fact that Republicans can of course never do anything morally right.
So what could have been a more constructive, coaxing relationship with better end results ended up alienating an (admittedly mean) partner and probably doing more net harm to the people of Uzbekistan and Afghanistan in the process.
Nathan
August 2, 2005
6:07 pm
In a word, yes.
I'm serious man. We're not talking about Turkmenistan or North Korea, but Karimov is pretty damned nutty. He had some pretty crazy ideas about what the Memorandum of Understanding actually meant.
Honestly, you can't pin this all on State. Their criticisms were not very vocal, and in the spirit of written promises the Uzbeks made to us in 2002. We kept our end of the deal and they didn't keep theirs. We were extremely patient and understanding until it became clear that there was no intention to keep their promises to us.
As much as you, I think that having a relationship would be good for Uzbekistan. However, since the Uzbek government has decided to eradicate any possibility for our relationship to do good by erecting towering walls between our institutions and their society, any loss here is entirely the fault of the Uzbeks.
Sorry to say it, but your characterization of the history of the US-Uzbek relationship is way too filtered through an ideological prism. 2002 through mid-2004, the administration was quietly critical of the Uzbek government, but it was all constructive. The Uzbek government didn't mind all that much and the human rights NGOs were livid with the administration. What changed is that Karimov is convinced that the US is behind some grand conspiracy to overthrow him using Islamists/democratic parties/etc. Seriously, he's detached from reality, and the fallout isn't State's fault.
IJ
August 2, 2005
7:30 pm
Moreover, the presidents of China and Russia last month issued a joint "statement":http://www.terradaily.com/news/unitednations-05b.html on a new world order.
Eddie
August 2, 2005
8:27 pm
If his demands and sensitivities began to eclipse the acceptable standards of our relationship, then something like this was bound to happen and could have been even more embarassing or damaging to us, as wiser others have pointed out on this topic.
At the UN, in Europe, in diplomatic meetings and summits, in the media... etc etc, I hope the US and Afghanistan highlight repeatedly the damage this does to US/Afghan efforts to quell the Taliban, aid the Afghans and build their nation into a stable neighbor to Uzbekistan and the rest of the countries in the region.
shakuhachi
August 4, 2005
6:06 am
Why is that detached from reality? American money finances all kinds of revolutionary groups.