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Curzon
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Curzon

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September 10th, 2005

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Eurasia News Roundup

Three big, underappreciated events took place in Eurasia this past week. Keep your eyes on these developments.

PAKISTAN is on track to normalize relations with Israel. Considering that Sharon is about as popular with the Pakistani people as Captain Hook, this could blow up in President Musharraf’s face. On the one hand, Egypt’s population is very anti-Israel, but the countries have diplomatic relations. Things could go roughly or smoothly for Pakistan, but no matter what the outcome in South Asia, Israel has nothing to lose.

BANGLADESH is cracking down on violent militants after the recent bomb attacks. In a recent raid they apparently seized 200 bombs, propagandist documents, and weapons. The recent bombings in the capital of Dhaka are apparently the work of militant groups who want to establish Islamic law. Bangladesh is governed by a secular Constitution.

UKRAINE’s democratically-elected government, much fawned over in the West, collapsed. The administration has only been in power for half a year, but it’s been a collosal mess. Prime Minister Timoshenko, widely believed to be a loose cannon from the get go, dumped promises of free market reforms and tried to enforce “administrative measures” to regulate the economy. Combine that with attacks against Russian and other companies that supplied Ukraine with Russian oil and gas, global oil price hikes, and no aid from the US and the West (because of Kiev’s backtracking on market economy rules), and it was a recipe for disaster. Moscow can now expect Ukrain’s anti-Russian streak to calm down, and Washington will try and save its recently gained influence in Kiev. Meanwhile, Timoshenko says she will win back power without Yuschenko’s help.

Comments to this entry

J.Kende
September 10, 2005
8:07 am
I wonder whether the election of Bibi in Israel will be favorable to a normalization of relations with Pakistan. I could on the one hand see Netanyahu presenting a harder line of rhetoric for the cameras; but could also see him representing a more credible carrot in the eyes of Musharraf because of his success as Finance Minister.
Gabriel Mihalache
September 10, 2005
9:13 am
Three big, underappreciated events took place in Eurasia this past week. Keep your eyes on these developments.


Only on Coming Anarchy could I have read this line!

Re: Ukraine... due to Communism (and it's the same in many post-communist --in name-- countries), many people look to the president for leadership, maybe more than to the PM, although executive power rests with the PM and the president role is smaller.

It's more about power figures and less about acknowledgment of proper constitutional mandates. (Imagine Americans putting their faith in Dick Cheney, in a way)

I think that the "orange revolution" will live on, via Yushchenko, just because people will see him as hard on corruption, without realizing that his constitutional mandate is not one of a dictator. (there's only so little he can do himself, without a strong, allied PM)

The same thing is sort of happening in Romania: president Basescu is widely popular (a little less in recent weeks) and if you ask, most people will tell you that they trust him to get things done, as if they wouldn't know that it's the PM that does all the executive work. (In Romania, according to the Belgian model, the president is a representative of the people... he watches over governmental institutions and stomps his foot, and in the worst case he gets to demand the change of the executive... more or less)

Romania went through a cabinet reshuffling and minor scandals yet the "orange revolution" seems to go strong still, fueled by a nosy president which often defies the constitutional limits of his job.
The winter will kill it, unfortunatelly, as far as I can tell. (It's morally imperative to fight the crypto-communists in the opposition, but not when we're freezing.)

The idea of an "orange revolution" is all about fighting communism but that's not really going to happen because corruption, nepotism and state abuse are so much part of the social fiber of eastern europe that change is a matter of generations, not legislation. On a simillar note, eastern europe lacks liberals, and I mean true "classical liberals" or libertarians, people who knew who Bastiat, Popper, Mises or Rand were. Most members of the PNL (National Liberal Party) are as neo-keynesian, collectivist and welfarist as those damn crypto-communists they're supposed to fight, on ideological grounds.
mark safranski
September 10, 2005
2:51 pm
" Combine that with attacks against Russian and other companies that supplied Ukraine with Russian oil and gas, global oil price hikes, and no aid from the US and the West (because of Kiev's backtracking on market economy rules), and it was a recipe for disaster "

Two observations:

It's kind of amazing how U.S. policy toward the former Soviet reublics never really seems to get any better no matter who is in power in D.C. We seem to have a knack for repeating the same, short-sighted, moronic mistakes from Bush I. to Clinton to Bush II. Perhaps it is time to bring in some outside regional experts into the NSC and get some fresh views on American relations with all CIS nations and what we hope to accomplish with our policies.

Secondly, in the interests of global democracy, perhaps we need a crash program to clone Vaclav Havel and export the clones to newly democratizing states. The local guys have a disheartening capacity for amateurish political incompetence and corruption.
Kenneth
September 10, 2005
11:04 pm
I wonder what Musharraf sees in relations with Israel that is making him willing to run the gauntlet with his domestic populace. Perhaps it's a first step in normalization of relations with the US in order to escape the perceived American threat. The traditional way out for Asian, particularly Central Asian, states has been to seek protection under the umbrella of Chinese power. Of course, these are SCO member states that have long had more or less congruent strategic interests with China, hence their SCO membership.
Tiu Fu Fong
September 12, 2005
11:48 am
For want of a better place to draw this to CA's attention, I post this here: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GI13Ak01.html

Quite an interesting article on Iran's imperialist ambitions, albeit more in the ME than Eurasia. The author has a series of articles available on the Asia Times website and quite a few recent ones have been on demographic change in Islamic countries.
Curzon
September 12, 2005
11:54 am
iF you left a real email address we wouldn't have this problem!
maskull
September 13, 2005
3:58 am
Israel is opening trade with Pakistan and Musharraf is to address the American Jewish Congress (AJC) in New York this Saturday, the first leader of a Muslim country to do so.

I first took notice of Musharraf when I saw his televised speech about a week after 9-11. He spoke in very modest surroundings, with a portrait of Kemal Atatürk hanging behind him on the wall. Cokie Roberts afterwards called it the finest speech she had ever heard. As her father was Cong. Hale Boggs, and she was raised in D.C., this is no small praise.

I recently went looking for that speech and discovered Musharraf's website. Quite something. PDF downloads in English of all his major speeches. Even 1024x768 & 800x600 wallpapers.

http://presidentofpakistan.gov.pk/PresidentialSpeeches.aspx

His 9-11 speech, covers all the bases and justifies helping the US to his countrymen.

http://presidentofpakistan.gov.pk/SpeechAddressList.aspx

He has several irons in the fire. A good article from Pakistan's perspective in Asia Times:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/GI01Df01.html

After the likes of Benazir Bhutto & Nawaz Sharif, he looks to me like The Man on the White Horse.
ComingAnarchy.com » Blog Archive » Elections in Former Soviet States
March 27, 2006
12:57 pm
[...] First, Ukraine. Yulia Timoshenko, who was fired as Ukraine’s prime minister by President Viktor Yushchenko six months ago (see original CA post here), may return to power at the head of a coalition government. Yushchenko’s party came in third place with 17.2 percent. Timoshenko’s bloc had 23.6 percent, and the Regions Party of Viktor Yanukovych held 25.6 percent. Despite the fallout from last year, Timoshenko wants to work with Yushchenko and not Yanukovych, who wants closer ties with Russia. Read more here. [...]
ComingAnarchy.com » Blog Archive » Ã?¢Ã?¸Ã?¼Ã?¾ÑˆÃ?µÃ?½Ã?ºÃ?¾ Ã?ŸÃ?µÑ€Ã?µÃ?¼Ã?¾Ã?³Ã?°!
April 14, 2006
2:53 pm
[...] Former Prime Minister Tymoshenko emerged as the clear victor, despite being fired by President Yushchenko last year. How did she pull off such a comeback? Regular reader and commenter Golios pointed me to this link of Ukrainian election posters—perhaps its because the woman ran a 21st century neo-Akira Aeon Flux-esque image she pushed during the campaign. [...]