Uzbekistan and the road to
war By Dmitry Shlapentokh
The policies of Islam Karimov, the
strongman of Uzbekistan, are not easy to decipher,
at least in regard to foreign policy. He recently
noted in conversation with Nursultan Nazarbaev,
the president of Kazakhstan, that if Tajikistan
and Kyrgyzstan were to proceed with building
hydropower stations that would prevent water
flowing into desert-covered Uzbekistan, it could
well result in war.
At the same time,
Karimov dropped Uzbekistan's membership in
Russia-sponsored security arrangements and has
increasingly befriended the US. Washington
appreciated this and immediately forgot about its
criticism of Tashkent's harsh dictatorial rule and
routine violation of human rights. After US
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton visited
Tashkent, the Karimov regime was completely
rehabilitated. A huge amount of US weaponry was
promised, most of it from
Afghanistan, which the United States has promised
to depart from in 2014.
Many Russian
observers proclaimed that Karimov had decided to
replace Russian sponsorship (krysha,
"roof", as Russian observers would put it) with
that of the United States, and Washington would
soon install bases in Uzbekistan. In their view,
the US was the only state that would guarantee the
Karimov regime's stability and the survivability
of him and his family.
This vision of
Karimov's regime is wrong, or to be precise,
naive. To start with, these folks still believe
that the US is, indeed, a mighty empire that is
able and willing to protect its allies. In
addition, they assume that Karimov is deluded and
blinded by anti-Russianism.
This is hardly
the case. It is not only that he has watched the
US departure from Iraq and knows of America's
pending departure from Afghanistan regardless of
the consequences, but he also observes the events
in Libya and Egypt, where Washington not only
demonstrated its naivety in removing strong
leaders, unleashing radical Islamist elements - a
mortal threat of the US - but dumped its faithful
ally Hosni Mubarak.
Thus Karimov's
flirting with the US is not due to his desire to
find an American krysha but to absolutely
different reasons: He needed not US protection but
US weapons to deal with his competitors in Central
Asia. Uzbekistan has a lot of problems with its
neighbors Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan; in fact,
there are continuous border conflicts with these
countries.
Kyrgyzstan is one of the easier
targets. Its part of the Fergana Valley, which
spreads across eastern Uzbekistan and Tajikistan
as well, has a considerable ethnic-Uzbek
population. They were slaughtered in the hundreds
in 1990 and again in 2010 by Kyrgyz. Uzbeks in
Kyrgyzstan could well play the role of the Sudeten
Germans in pre-World War II Czechoslovakia, who
welcomed invading Nazi troops as liberators. In
the case of a similar strike, Karimov, or another
ruler who would replace him, would be hailed as a
liberator by the Uzbek minority.
This part
of Kyrgyzstan would not necessarily be annexed by
Uzbekistan but could emerge as Tashkent's
proxy/puppet state similar to Abkhazia and South
Ossetia, Russia's proxies. It also could boost
Karimov's popularity and justify his brutish rule.
As I was told by an Uzbek acquaintance, many
Uzbeks, especially members of the middle class,
find, retrospectively, justification for Karimov's
brutish suppression of the Andijan uprising in
2005.
Thus Kyrgyzstan could well suffer
from an invasion by Uzbekistan. (One might add
that some members of Kyrgyzstan's parliament take
the Tashkent threat seriously enough.) Tashkent
could also deploy forces in dealing with Dushanbe.
And there is a precedent. In 2000, Tajikistan took
a small but strategically important piece of land
that belonged to Uzbekistan.
One, of
course, should note here that both countries
belong to the Russia-sponsored military alliance
and that Russian President Vladimir Putin recently
proclaimed a plan to create a customs union,
supposedly the nucleus of the Eurasian Union, a
tight geopolitical alliance of friendly nations.
One could assume that these countries, where
Russia has military bases and which are part of a
broad military alliance, would protect Dushanbe
and Bishkek. Still, Tashkent doubts that all of
the countries would engage in military action in
the case of a blitzkrieg. Russia did not help
Kyrgyzstan in 2010 during the bloody ethnic
conflict there, even when Bishkek directly
requested help, and many Kyrgyz and Uzbeks alike
would welcome Russian peacemakers.
Russia
made no moves to help Tajikistan during the recent
upheaval in Gorno-Badakhshan province. Moreover,
some Tajik observers believe that Moscow actually
encouraged the upheaval as a way to compel
Dushanbe to keep the Russian military base free of
charge.
Belarus, another potential
Eurasian Union member, provides a refuge for
Kurmanbek Bakiyev, the Kyrgyz president overthrown
in 2010. Bishkek regarded him as a criminal and
demanded his surrender to Kyrgyz authorities, but
Belarusian President Aleksander Lukashenko
refused, which led to serious tension between
Bishkek and Minsk.
Finally, Nazarbaev,
whose country is another would-be member of the
Eurasian Union, didn't disapprove of Karimov's
bellicose statement during their recent
conversation.
All of these could indeed
tempt Karimov to use force. Thus Karimov's desire
to move closer to the US is not indicative of a
desire to find a patron but simply the desire for
weapons that Karimov - who alluded that he is the
new embodiment of Tamerlane - could use. And he
made an implicit threat in a world where both
America's and Russia's influence and resolve are
waning.
Therefore these threats should be
taken seriously. This, indeed, could be seen in
future retrospectives as a sign of possible war.
Dmitry Shlapentokh PhD is
associate professor of history, College of Liberal
Arts and Sciences, Indiana University South Bend.
He is author of East against West: The First
Encounter - The Life of Themistocles, 2005.
(Copyright 2012 Asia Times Online
(Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us about sales, syndication and
republishing.)
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
