More on Uzbekistan

In today's Washington Post Jackson Diehl makes many of the same points I did about Uzbekistan on 14 June, though he focuses on giving aid to Kyrgyzstan. He asks "Why should the Bush administration not begin to focus on Kyrgyzstan as a military and political partner, while conspicuously leaving Uzbekistan, and Karimov, in the cold?"

That question has two answers: First, as he points out, Kyrgyz democracy is not yet stable. Should we move our forces to a country where democracy may fail in the next few months? Second, alternatives to the airbase in Uzbekistan will be more costly and possibly less effective. A Kyrgyz base, for example, will increase the distance it takes to fly to either Afghanistan or Iraq.

Do these two considerations mean that abandoning Uzbekistan for Kyrgyzstan is a bad idea? No. The message of support for democratic forces and our willingness to abandon a dictator may well offset these costs. To my mind, they do. But those costs must be seen clearly.

There are other alternatives that should be considered as well. In the July-August issue of Foreign Affairs, the estimable S. Frederick Starr advocates a regional approach centered on a regional partnership for cooperation and development. Not long ago, Chris Seiple of the Foreign Policy Research Institute also argued for greater American involvement in the region.

Indeed, given what appears to be the increasing importance of Central Asia to the United States, the fragility of the governments there, and the proximity of the region to the bubbling cauldron that surrounds the Persian Gulf, perhaps it is time for the United States to pay greater attention to these distant states. There are solid reasons to be tentative--complications in our relations with Russia among them--but we may also benefit from improving the political and economic structures that these Islamic peoples have been building since the Soviet Union collapsed. Our effort might provide an image that can help bleach the vivid colors of terrorism that too many have found attractive.

Note: S. Frederick Starr is currently head of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute (CACI) at Johns Hopkins University's Nitze School of Advanced International Studies. His proposal is also described in one of CACI's studies.