The countries of
Central Asia are tinder-boxes primed for explosions.
Turkmenistan is ruled by an egotistic maniac who has changed the
names of the calendar months and named them after himself and
his family members. He calls himself the father of the Turks and
rules despotically using repression and torture. The landlocked
country has moderate amounts of gas reserves, but no channel to
sell them to any market. It abuts Iran which has built a rail
line to Ashkabad, but it has no industrial base to export
anything. The country is poor and repression will lead to the
predictable resistance that will seek refuge and succor in
mosques, the only outlet that cannot be completely suppressed
where the population is Islamic. Saudi Wahabi and Iranian Shiite
influences will use the fertile ground favored by sect and
proximity respectively.
Uzbekistan is another landlocked country awaiting conflagration.
Its tyrant ruler is known to torture dissidents by boiling them
alive. A British diplomat was recalled and sort of fired for
protesting human rights violations. So much for the hypocrisy of
human rights loudly proclaimed by the West. The recent killings
in Andijan led to a mild American rebuke. The despot earlier
stopped night flights from the American base at Khanabad and
more recently asked the Americans to vacate the base in six
months. China and Russia, in knee jerk fashion sided with him,
revealing their hypocrisy and confirming that national policies
are short-sighted, convenient and devoid of any moral or
humanitarian basis. The artificial boundaries created by
colonial overlords has left the country with Tajik minorities
and the seeds of fissiparous tendencies. A prior radical group,
the Islamic movement of Uzbekistan was supported by the Taliban
government of Afghanistan and though attenuated by state
brutality, still has glowing embers of support. If Afghanistan
unravels as it seems to be doing, there will be a strong
resurgence of radical Islam as the only surviving counter-force
to tyrannical oppression.
Kyrgyzstan just underwent a coup in which the ruling despot fled
and was given asylum by Russia . The coup was instigated by NGOs
financed by American aid. India should take notice. The newly
elected leader has unwisely chosen to follow an independent
foreign policy today. This is like Lichtenstein, Luxemburg or
Monaco declaring an independent foreign policy. The country is
adjacent to the Xinjiang region of China with dissident Muslim
Uighurs and it is unlikely that China would tolerate resurgent
radical Islam or American military bases and interference over
the long run. The current Kyrgyz leader does not understand that
geography is history. America constantly and relentlessly tries
to topple Castro’s Cuban government and China and the former
overlord Russia will try to do the same. Add to this the Islamic
radicalism simmering under the surface and we have another
catastrophe waiting to happen.
Tajikistan is just recovering from a civil war involving radical
Islamic extremists a decade ago. It is a poor country with no
energy resources and like its neighbors derives a significant
portion of its GDP from narcotics or the transport thereof.
Though Sunni, its language is Persian based, unlike the
previously mentioned Turkic states. It and the Tajik Northern
Alliance have and continue to receive financial and military
assistance from Iran and India .
When Afghanistan explodes, it is likely to lead to a slow but
definite chain reaction in Turkmenistan , Tajikistan and
Uzbekistan , which are immediately contiguous and engulf
Kyrgyzstan as well. The implacable American hostility to Iran is
likely to engender such policies in Iran . If America is foolish
enough to mount an attack against Iranian nuclear facilities,
Iran will be even more radicalized and it will expedite the
process.
The failure of the Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite factions of Iraq to
come up with a constitution and the aspirations of the Kurd and
Shiites conflicting with the ambitions and prior hegemony of the
Iraqi Sunnis, will lead to a trifurcation of Iraq and the
autonomous Kurdish region will cause instability in the Kurdish
regions of Turkey , Syria and Iran . The Iraqi Sunnis in the
middle, already supported in their insurgency by Syrian,
Jordanian and Saudi manpower, money and sympathies are likely to
become the Sunni wedge in the heart of a Shiite confederacy
encompassing Southern Iraq, Iran and Western Afghanistan
including Herat and the Hazara region.
The adventurism of the current American administration with the
equally short-sighted machinations of Russia , China , Iran ,
India and Pakistan paint a dismal future for all of Central Asia
from eastern Turkey to western China . So-called peaceful
Islamic extremists with a dream of a Caliphate and a Sharia code
of justice are already popular in many of the Central Asian
Republics and the indiscriminate retaliatory violence by the
American occupation forces in Afghanistan will further fuel the
fires of radical Islam in Afghanistan with the active fanning of
Pakistan and its obsession with strategic depth. These will then
carry the conflagration further east and north to the detriment
of the neighborhood and the world. The training of radicals in
these sanctuaries will lead to further terrorism by sleeper
cells in Europe with its large disenchanted and discriminated
Muslim minorities, lacking adequate education and marketable
skills to meld successfully into the advanced western economies.
This is what Bush and Blair have wrought in their delusions and
lack of intelligence, foresight and planning. Thus a conspiracy
of a fool and a knave can wreak havoc on the poor and the
innocents, just as much as the cruelty and power lust of a
Saddam.
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