[Mb-civic] Ousted From Uzbekistan - Jim Hoagland - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

<>Ousted From Uzbekistan
Our Global Strategy Trips Over Cold War Reflexes

By Jim Hoagland
Sunday, 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.

That makes the U.S-Uzbek rupture more than a diplomatic spat over human 
rights. It becomes a focus for global strategy as well, raising serious 
questions about the Bush administration's ability to sustain an American 
military presence in Central Asia as other major powers reassert their 
perceived interests in the region.

<>Settling on a strategy toward Karimov alone was not that difficult for 
Washington. Superpowers have a history of cutting adrift once-useful 
bloodstained dictators. But charting why Putin is now asking President 
Bush to set a timetable for U.S. withdrawal from military bases in all 
of Central Asia is a far bigger, still unfolding task.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/05/AR2005080501484.html 

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