This doesn’t sound good:
Kazakhstan, a former Soviet Republic in Central Asia and the world’s ninth-largest country, is oil-rich and pro-American, has an increasingly repressive government awash in corruption and a 47 percent Moslem population. Those are many of the conditions that have allowed radical Islam to take root in the Middle East.
The Bush administration, by appeasing Kazakhstan for its oil and accommodation of U.S. troops, risks contributing to the creation of a new Iraq or Afghanistan on a giant scale.
This is just the beginning of a plausible Central Asian nightmare scenario. Numerous other former Soviet republics, including Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrkyzstan, are similarly ripe for Islamic radicalization in a region that stretches from Europe to China.
Should Islamic guerrilla warfare come to the area, American forces intent on fighting a “war on terror” could be drawn into battle in close proximity to Russia and China, in a resource-rich region where the world’s three largest nuclear powers are already jockeying for control.
. . .
By supporting such leaders or turning a blind eye to their misdeeds for the short-term use they can be to the United States, the Bush administration is encouraging another blowback.
The administration should demonstrate its commitment to democracy by becoming a vocal critic of autocracy and corruption in Central Asia. It should think twice before counting former Communist Party and KGB hands as its allies. Instead, it should support thousands of reformists throughout the region who, like Sergei Duvanov, are languishing in prisons unjustly or have been silenced through intimidation and fear.