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Posted on October 30, 2011.
Experts believe that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to Central Asia is in pursuit of one goal: to justify the necessity for American troops to remain in the region after the withdrawal of NATO forces from Afghanistan in 2014.
At the end of last week, on Oct. 23, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wrapped up her extended tour, in the course of which she visited such countries as Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and, finally, Uzbekistan. Notably, Clinton publicly justified her visit to Tashkent by saying, “If you have no contact you will have no influence, and other countries will fill that vacuum who do not care about human rights.” The secretary of state thus explained the need to meet with Uzbek leader Islam Karimov. Indeed, Clinton took the time to meet with human rights activists in Tashkent. However, one of the participants noted to Deutsche Welle, “There was no special meaning to the conversation.”
According to a source, the talks between U.S. Secretary of State Clinton and Uzbek President Karimov did not involve the signing of any documents; however, according to the unanimous opinion of observers, the visit decisively secured the restoration of the relationship between Washington and Tashkent. This was the first trip to Uzbekistan by such a high-level American diplomat since the U.S. administration decided this fall to rescind the 2004 prohibition on military assistance to Uzbekistan.
Expert: The U.S. Wants to Have a Military Base in the Region
The U.S. secretary of state concentrated special attention on the issues that were discussed in Kabul and Islamabad, namely: what will happen after 2014 when international coalition forces are slated to leave Afghanistan. “The U.S. is intensively preparing itself for the time when active military operations with NATO participation in the Hindu Kush will cease,” German regional expert Gunter Knabe tells Deutsche Welle. According to him, the basic goals of the American administration are to maintain military presence in the region after 2014 and to prevent the intensification of radical Islamic movements.
One of Clinton’s aides said that the secretary of state assured Karimov that the U.S. will remain in the region. However, it was emphasized that Washington has no plans to open military bases in Uzbekistan. Gunter Knabe does not believe this: “The U.S. has expressed interest in having a military base in Uzbekistan or, worst case, the right for military aircraft to fly over and land in their territory,” he says. However, the U.S. has no formal basis to maintain military presence in Central Asia after 2014. Therefore, says the German expert, Clinton’s main task during the course of talks with the Uzbek and Tajik leaders was to find grounds to remain in the region that will be acceptable to all.
The U.S. Does Not Learn from Its Own Mistakes
The move toward Uzbekistan, the territory of which accommodates one of the main supply routes for international coalition forces in Afghanistan, was very skeptically evaluated by Andrew Stroehlein of the independent expert organization International Crisis Group (ICG). In his opinion, the U.S. is counting on an unreliable route, the basic insufficiency being that it is the sole border crossing point at Hairaton, Afghanistan. “One day, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan … may decide to do something about this bottleneck. If that happens, there are few, if any, alternative crossings. For this weak, and probably temporary, supply point, Washington is willing to close its eyes to the oppression and corruption of the Karimov regime,” Stroehlein writes.
The improvement in the relationship with the Uzbek regime, in his opinion, will bring the Americans short-term dividends at best. “See how fervent and blinkered U.S. support for Pakistan’s military dictator Pervez Musharraf for so many years helped dig the hole the U.S. finds itself in there now, with an army and intelligence partner not just unreliable but openly hostile, and the country itself on the brink,” writes Stroehlein in a recent report of the ICG.
At the same time, Gunter Knabe believes that currently, it is difficult to estimate the extent to which the U.S. decision to support Uzbekistan is true to its military and political points of view. “What is happening now is exclusively power politics,” says Knabe. Concerning the issue of human rights, he noted that “morality and politics are often incompatible.”
Competition with China and Russia
The U.S. is also interested in developing its “New Silk Road” concept, the main goal of which is greater integration of Afghanistan into the regional economy, thus reducing dependence on financial bailouts from the West — or so Washington hopes. Knabe believes that Clinton hopes to give concrete details of her program at a conference on Afghanistan planned for early December in Bonn, so it is important that the Central Asian countries participate in the conference as much as possible.
Finally, one should remember that the driving force behind U.S. foreign policy in Central Asia is the growing regional competition with China and Russia, says Knabe. “Moscow is trying to play its “Eurasian” card; by that I mean Vladimir Putin’s recent statements, which could be interpreted as an attempt to re-establish former greatness,” says Knabe. However, he is convinced that the Central Asian countries themselves are not overjoyed with Moscow’s plans and are seeking a counterweight in the form of good relationships with the U.S.
Author: Mikhail Bushuyev
Editor: Julia Setkova
Yes, I agree generally that the neocon position is alive and well in the United States. Shades James Monroe, Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Lyndon Johnson. And the only person who is not a neocon is Ron Paul. He endorses the principles of the U.S. Constitution, which seems to be getting short shrift these days, and of international law which outlaws agressive war. The U.S. has gone far off course, and the only one who is talking sense is Ron Paul.