Trials and Tribulations of Central Asia Integration

The pros and cons of being the Heartland in the 21st century

Pepe ESCOBAR, Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan

Crossing Tajikistan from west to northeast – Dushanbe to the Tajik-Kyrgyz border – and then Kyrgyzstan from south to north all the way to Bishkek via Osh, is one of the most extraordinary road trips on earth. Not only this is prime Ancient Silk Road territory but now is being propelled as a significant stretch of the 21st century New Silk Roads.

In addition to its cultural, historical and anthropological pull, this road trip also lays bare some of the key issues related to the development of Central Asia. It was particularly enlightening to hit the road as previously, at the 5th Astana Club meeting in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan, I had had the pleasure of moderating a panel titled Central Asia at the Intersection of Global Interests: pros and cons of being Heartland.

The Heartland in the 21st century could not but be a major draw. Any serious analyst knows that Central Asia is the privileged corridor for both Europe and Asia at the heart of the New Silk Roads, as the Chinese-led BRI converges with the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU).

And yet, less than 10% of trade in Central Asia happens within the region, while 60% is directed to the EU. Idiosyncratic practices among the five former Soviet “Stans” still somewhat prevail. At the same time, there’s a consensus that measures such as a proposed, online, unified Silk Visa plan are bound to boost tourism and trade connectivity.

Banking experts such as Jacob Frenkel, chairman of JP Morgan Chase International, insist that the path towards inclusive growth in Central Asia entails access for financial services and financial tech; Nur-Sultan, incidentally, happens to be the only financial center within a 3,000-mile radius. Only a few years ago it was basically a potato field.

So it will be up to Kazakhs to capitalize on the financial ramifications of their independent, multi-vector foreign policy. After all, aware that his young nation was a “child of complicated history,” First President Nursultan Nazabayev from the beginning, in the early 1990s, wanted to prevent a Balkans scenario in Central Asia – as proposed as a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy by Zbigniew Brzezinski in The Grand Chessboard. Recently Kazakhstan mediated quite successfully between Turkey and Russia. And then there’s the Kazakh hosting of the Astana process, which quickly evolved as the privileged road map for the pacification of Syria.

A link or a bridge?

Frederick Starr, chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute in Washington, made a crucial point in the sidelines of our debate: the UN recently passed a unanimous resolution recognizing Central Asia as a world region. And yet, there is no structure for cooperation inside Central Asia. Tricky national border issues between the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya rivers may have been solved. There are very few pending questions between, for instance, the Uzbeks and the Kyrgyz. Most “Stans” are SCO members, some are EAEU members and all want to profit from BRI.

But as I later saw for myself on the road as I crossed Tajikistan and then Kyrgyzstan, tariff barriers still apply. Industrial cooperation is developing very slowly. Corruption is rife. Distrust against “foreigners” is inbred. And on top of it, the fallout of the US-China trade war affects mostly developing nations – such as the Central Asians. A solution, Starr argues, would be to boost the work of an established commission, and aim towards setting up a single market by 2025.

At the Nur-Sultan debate, my friend Bruno Macaes, former Minister for Europe in Portugal and author of the excellent The Dawn of Eurasia, argued that the thrust for the New Silk Roads remains sea transportation, and investment in ports. As Central Asia is landlocked, the emphasis should be on soft infrastructure. Kazakhstan is uniquely positioned to understand differences between trading bocks. Macaes argues that Nur-Sultan should aim to replicate the role of Singapore as a bridge.

Peter Burian, the EU Special Representative for Central Asia, chose to stress the positives: how Central Asia has managed to survive its new Heartland incarnation without conflict, and how it’s engaged in institutional building from scratch. The Baltics should be taken as an example. Burian insists the EU does not want to impose ready-made concepts, and would rather work as a link, not as a bridge. More EU economic presence in Central Asia means, in practice, an investment commitment of $1.2 billion in seven years, which may not amount to much but targets very specific, practical-minded projects.

Evgeny Vinokurov, chief economist of the Eurasian Fund for Stabilization and Development, touched on a real success story: the 15 day-only transportation/connectivity rail between China’s central provinces, Central Asia and the EU – now running at 400,000 cargo containers a year, and rising, and used by anyone from BMW to all manner of Chinese manufacturers. Over 10 million tons of merchandise a year is already moving West while six million tons are moving East. Vinokurov is adamant that the next step for Central Asia is to build industrial parks.

Svante Cornell, from the Institute for Security and Development Policy, emphasized a voluntary process, possibly with six nations (Afghanistan also included), and well-coordinated in practice (way beyond mere political integration). Models should be result-oriented ASEAN and Mercosur (presumably before Bolsonaro’s disruptive practices). Key issues involve facilitating smoother border crossings and for Central Asia to position itself as not just a corridor.

Essentially, Central Asia should think eastwards – in an SCO/ASEAN symbiosis, keeping in mind the role Singapore developed for itself as a global hub.

What about tech transfer?

As I saw for myself days later, when for instance, visiting the University of Central Asia in Khorog, in the Pamir Highway in Tajikistan, set up by the Aga Khan foundation, there is a serious drive across Central Asia to invest in universities and techno centers. In terms of Chinese investment, for instance, the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is financing hydropower in Kyrgyzstan. The EU is engaged in what it defines as a “trilateral project” – supporting education for Afghan women and universities in both Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

This may all be discussed and deepened in an upcoming, first-time-ever summit of Central Asian presidents. Not bad as a first step.

Arguably the most intriguing intervention in the debate in Nur-Sultan was by former Kyrgyz Prime Minister Djoomart Otorbaev. He remarked that the GDP of four “Stans,” excluding Kazakhstan, is still smaller than Singapore’s. He insisted the road map ahead is to unite – mostly geoeconomically. He emphasized that both Russia and China “are officially complementary” and that’s “great for us.” Now it’s time to invest in human capital and thus generate more demand.

But once again, the inescapable factor is always China. Otorbaev, referring to BRI, insisted, “you must offer to us the highest technological solutions.” I asked him point-blank whether he could name a project with inbuilt, top technological transfer to Kyrgyzstan. He answered, “I didn’t see any added value so far.” Beijing better go back to the drawing board – seriously.

asiatimes.com

Iran’s ‘Only Crime Is We Decided Not to Fold’

Foreign Minister Zarif sketches Iran-US relations for diplomats, former presidents and analysts

Pepe ESCOBAR

Just in time to shine a light on what’s behind the latest sanctions from Washington, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in a speech at the annual Astana Club meeting in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan delivered a searing account of Iran-US relations to a select audience of high-ranking diplomats, former Presidents and analysts.

Zarif was the main speaker in a panel titled “The New Concept of Nuclear Disarmament.” Keeping to a frantic schedule, he rushed in and out of the round table to squeeze in a private conversation with Kazakh First President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

During the panel, moderator Jonathan Granoff, President of the Global Security Institute, managed to keep a Pentagon analyst’s questioning of Zafir from turning into a shouting match.

Previously, I had extensively discussed with Syed Rasoul Mousavi, minister for West Asia at the Iran Foreign Ministry, myriad details on Iran’s stance everywhere from the Persian Gulf to Afghanistan. I was at the James Bond-ish round table of the Astana Club, as I moderated two other panels, one on multipolar Eurasia and the post-INF environment and another on Central Asia (the subject of further columns).

Zarif’s intervention was extremely forceful. He stressed how Iran “complied with every agreement and it got nothing;” how “our people believe we have not gained from being part of” the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action; how inflation is out of control; how the value of the rial dropped 70% “because of ‘coercive measures’ – not sanctions because they are illegal.”

He spoke without notes, exhibiting absolute mastery of the inextricable swamp that is US-Iran relations. It turned out, in the end, to be a bombshell. Here are highlights.

Zarif’s story began back during 1968 negotiations of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,  with the stance of the “Non-Aligned Movement to accept its provisions only if at a later date” – which happened to be 2020 – “there would be nuclear disarmament.” Out of 180 non-aligned countries, “90 countries co-sponsored the indefinite extension of the NPT.”

Moving to the state of play now, he mentioned how the United States and France are “relying on nuclear weapons as a means of deterrence, which is disastrous for the entire world.” Iran on the other hand “is a country that believes nuclear weapons should never be owned by any country,” due to “strategic calculations based on our religious beliefs.”

Zarif stressed how “from 2003 to 2012 Iran was under the most severe UN sanctions that have ever be imposed on any country that did not have nuclear weapons. The sanctions that were imposed on Iran from 2009 to 2012 were greater than the sanctions that were imposed on North Korea, which had nuclear weapons.”

Discussing the negotiations for the JCPOA that started in 2012, Zarif noted that Iran had started from the premise that “we should be able to develop as much nuclear energy as we wanted” while the US had started under the premise that Iran should never have any centrifuges.” That was the “zero-enrichment” option.

Zarif, in public, always comes back to the point that “in every zero-sum game everybody loses.” He admits the JCPOA is “a difficult agreement. It’s not a perfect agreement. It has elements I don’t like and it has elements the United Stares does not like.” In the end, “we reached the semblance of a balance.”

Zarif offered a quite enlightening parallel between the NPT and the JCPOA: “The NPT was based on three pillars: non-proliferation, disarmament and access to nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. Basically the disarmament part of NPT is all but dead, non-proliferation is barely surviving and peaceful use of nuclear energy is under serious threat,” he observed.

Meanwhile, “JCPOA was based on two pillars: economic normalization of Iran, which is reflected in Security Council resolution 2231, and – at the same time – Iran observing certain limits on nuclear development.”

Crucially, Zarif stressed there is nothing “sunset” about these limits, as Washington argues: “We will be committed to not producing nuclear weapons forever.”

All about distrust

Then came Trump’s fateful May 2018 decision: “When President Trump decided to withdraw from the JCPOA, we triggered the dispute resolution mechanism.” Referring to a common narrative that describes him and John Kerry as obsessed with sacrificing everything to get a deal, Zarif said: “We negotiated this deal based on distrust. That’s why you have a mechanism for disputes.”

Still, “the commitments of the EU and the commitments of the United States are independent. Unfortunately the EU believed they could procrastinate. Now we are at a situation where Iran is receiving no benefit, nobody is implementing their part of the bargain, only Russia and China are fulfilling partially their commitments, because the United States even prevents them from fully fulfilling their commitments. France proposed last year to provide $15 billion to Iran for the oil we could sell from August to December. The United States prevented the European Union even from addressing this.”

The bottom line, then, is that “other members of the JCPOA are in fact not implementing their commitments.” The solution “is very easy. Go back to the non-zero sum. Go back to implementing your commitments. Iran agreed that it would negotiate from Day One.”

Zarif made the prediction that “if the Europeans still believe that they can take us to the Security Council and snap back resolutions they’re dead wrong. Because that is a remedy if there was a violation of the JCPOA. There was no violation of the JCPOA. We took these actions in response to European and American non-compliance. This is one of the few diplomatic achievements of the last many decades. We simply need to make sure that the two pillars exist: that there is a semblance of balance.”

This led him to a possible ray of light among so much doom and gloom: “If what was promised to Iran in terms of economic normalization is delivered, even partially, we are prepared to show good faith and come back to the implementation of the JCPOA. If it’s not, then unfortunately we will continue this path, which is a path of zero-sum, a path leading to a loss for everybody, but a path that we have no other choice but to follow.”

Time for HOPE

Zarif identifies three major problems in our current geopolitical madness: a “zero-sum mentality on international relations that doesn’t work anymore;” winning by excluding others (“We need to establish dialogue, we need to establish cooperation”); and “the belief that the more arms we purchase, the more security we can bring to our people.”

He was adamant that there’s a possibility of implementing “a new paradigm of cooperation in our region,” referring to Nazarbayev’s efforts: a real Eurasian model of security. But that, Zarif explained, “requires a neighborhood policy. We need to look at our neighbors as our friends, as our partners, as people without whom we cannot have security. We cannot have security in Iran if Afghanistan is in turmoil. We cannot have security in Iran if Iraq is in turmoil. We cannot have security in Iran if Syria is in turmoil. You cannot have security in Kazakhstan if the Persian Gulf region is in turmoil.”

He noted that, based on just such thinking, “resident Rouhani this year, in the UN General Assembly, offered a new approach to security in the Persian Gulf region, called HOPE, which is the acronym for Hormuz Peace Initiative – or Hormuz Peace Endeavor so we can have the HOPE abbreviation.”

HOPE, explained Zarif, “is based on international law, respect of territorial integrity; based on accepting a series of principles and a series of confidence building measures; and we can build on it as you [addressing Nazarbayev] built on it in Eurasia and Central Asia. We are proud to be a part of the Eurasia Economic Union, we are neighbors in the Caspian, we have concluded last year, with your leadership, the legal convention of the Caspian Sea, these are important development that happened on the northern part of Iran. We need to repeat them in the southern part of Iran, with the same mentality that we can’t exclude our neighbors. We are either doomed or privileged to live together for the rest of our lives. We are bound by geography. We are bound by tradition, culture, religion and history.” To succeed, “we need to change our mindset.”

Age of hegemony gone

It all comes down to the main reason US foreign policy just can’t get enough of Iran demonization. Zarif has no doubts: “There is still an arms embargo against Iran on the way. But we are capable of shooting down a US drone spying in our territory. We are trying simply to be independent. We never said we will annihilate Israel. Somebody said Israel will be annihilated. We never said we will do it.”

It was, Zarif said, Benjamin Netanyahu who took ownership of that threat, saying, “I was the only one against the JCPOA.” Netanyahu “managed to destroy the JCPOA. What is the problem? The problem is we decided not to fold. That is our only crime. We had a revolution against a government that was supported by the United States, imposed on our country by the United States, [that] tortured our people with the help of the United States, and never received a single human rights condemnation, and now people are worried why they say ‘Death to America’? We say death to these policies, because they have brought nothing but this farce. What did they bring to us? If somebody came to the United States, removed your president, imposed a dictator who killed your people, wouldn’t you say death to that country?”

Zarif inevitably had to evoke Mike Pompeo: “Today the Secretary of State of the United States says publicly: ‘If Iran wants to eat, it has to obey the United States.’ This is a war crime. Starvation is a crime against humanity. It’s a newspeak headline. If Iran wants its people to eat, it has to follow what he said. He says, ‘Death to the entire Iranian people.’”

By then the atmosphere across the huge round table was electric. One could hear a pin drop – or, rather, the mini sonic booms coming from high up in the shallow dome via the system devised by star architect Norman Foster, heating the high-performance glass to melt the snow.

Zarif went all in: “What did we do the United States? What did we do to Israel? Did we make their people starve? Who is making our people starve? Just tell me. Who is violating the nuclear agreement? Because they did not like Obama? Is that a reason to destroy the world, just because you don’t like a president?”

Iran’s only crime, he said, “is that we decided to be our own boss. And that crime – we are proud of it. And we will continue to be. Because we have seven millennia of civilization. We had an empire that ruled the world, and the life of that empire was probably seven times the entire life of the United States. So – with all due respect to the United States empire; I owe my education to the United States – we don’t believe that the United States is an empire that will last. The age of empires is long gone. The age of hegemony is long gone. We now have to live in a world without hegemony. – regional hegemony or global hegemony.”

Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan

asiatimes.com

Dictator: Media code for ‘Government we don’t like’

By Alan Macleod 

FAIR - Let’s start with a quiz: Quick! Name some dictators! I’m willing to bet most of you responded with just a few of the same names: Assad, Putin, Castro, Kim Jong-un, Gaddafi, Maduro. This is not because they are the only dictators in the world (far from it), or that all of them even necessarily qualify for the title, but precisely because these are the figures most constantly labeled as such by our media.

“Dictator” is a very powerful moniker to give someone. There is a hard-to-define but very important distinction between a government with authoritarian tendencies or a poor human rights record, on the one hand, and a full-blown dictatorship. The very name implies that dictatorial governments should, nay, must be resisted and overthrown, while the same action is not appropriate or justifiable for the former.

Democracy is a supposedly sacred ideal for Americans. Politicians and media tell us that the United States “stands for” democracy and opposes dictatorships everywhere, one reason why the US must continue to involve itself diplomatically and militarily around the world.
However, Freedom House’s “Freedom in the World” studies find that 49 countries—over a quarter of the world’s governments—are “not free”, a designation they use interchangeably with “dictatorships” on their website and their reports. Why then, do most politically savvy people not know the names of all these dictators? Why are they not household names, like Assad and co.? Is it because the United States provides military assistance (training, sales and aid) to three-quarters of them, as Rich Whitney’s study (Truthout, 9/23/17) suggests?

How Free is Freedom House?

Defining and quantifying what does and does not constitute a dictatorship is a notoriously tricky business, and Freedom House’s strong conservative political bias makes its list and judgments all the more questionable. For one, the “non-governmental” organization is actually overwhelmingly funded by Washington, who employed Freedom House in 2006 to perform “clandestine activities”—i.e., regime change operations—in Iran.

The man in charge of compiling the freedom list, used by Whitney and many others, admitted his methodology consisted of “hunches and intuition.” And as many scholars have indicated, Freedom House also has a long history of supporting US client state dictatorships and attacking enemy states such as Nicaragua; the ratings have a strong conservative and pro-US ideological bias. Nevertheless, its index is useful, as it is the most commonly cited source on the matter, and one can assume that it is not going out of its way to falsely label US allies as dictators.

When you look at the governments that Freedom House describes as dictatorships, those that are also Official Enemies are frequently described as such in corporate media—for example, Russia (Washington Post, 5/8/18), Cuba (USA Today, 2/26/19), Syria (New York Times, 3/2/19), Belarus (ABC, 3/5/19),  North Korea (USA Today, 3/22/19) and Venezuela (New York Times, 4/10/19). Yet “our dictators”—that is, the “not free” governments that Washington supports—are rarely if ever labeled as dictatorships by the establishment press. In fact, there is very little coverage at all of those countries that are “behaving themselves” as far as the US State Department is concerned.

Let’s look at the press coverage of four of Freedom House’s “dictators” who receive US military aid, all of whom have been in the news recently: Paul Biya of Cameroon, Abdel el-Sisi of Egypt, Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria and Kazakhstan’ s Nursultan Nazarbayev.

Cameroon

The 86-year-old Paul Biya, the longest serving non-royal head of state in the world, has held office in Cameroon since Gerald Ford was president. He recently won a seventh term in office that Foreign Policy (10/22/18) described as a “farce.” Cameroon has been in the news of late, due to the government’s human rights abuses pushing the country to the brink of a civil war. Freedom House considers it to be one of the least free countries in the world.

However, when discussed at all, Biya was presented matter-of-factly by the media, without the need to add call him a “dictator.” The New York Times (10/6/18) presented him euphemistically as “one of the world’s longest-serving presidents.” From the coverage, readers would not know he is a dictator, even by Freedom House’s standards. In fact, going through fully 20 years of coverage in the Times, Biya was never once described as a “dictator,” “despot,” “tyrant” or any other similar designation.

When Biya was rebuked at all, the tone of the coverage was less condemnatory and more muted criticism. Voice of America (2/14/19) noted that Biya’s decision to remove presidential term limits (meaning he could rule for life) led some “critics” to call the move “authoritarian.”

Egypt

Gen. Abdel el-Sisi came to power in 2013 in  a military coup that overthrew the democratically elected government of President Mohamed Morsi. Sisi recently announced his plan to rule until 2034—effectively in perpetuity.

The New York Times’ article (2/14/19) on the subject noted that this would “further entrench his authoritarian rule,” and even noted he had jailed “tens of thousands” of opponents, muzzled the internet and taken over the courts. Nevertheless, it stopped well short of calling him a dictator. Indeed, it noted that he enjoyed strong support from around the world, and was seen as a “bulwark against Islamist militancy” in the region, endorsed by the US and France. Other media outlets followed this tendency. CNN (2/13/19) simply described him as “current President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi,” while NPR (2/14/19) likewise just referred to “Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi.”

While accurately noting Sisi’s “unprecedented crackdown on dissent,” which imprisoned “tens of thousands of people,” the BBC’s report (2/15/19) labeled him neutrally as “president,” and only characterized his steps to rule virtually indefinitely as something “opponents of the proposal describe” as “a further step towards authoritarianism.” Thus, its strongest criticism of Egypt is that it’s accused of moving toward “authoritarianism”—a long way from being a full-fledged “dictator.”

 Algeria

After he announced he intended to stand once again for president, massive protests broke out all around Algeria against 82-year-old Abdelaziz Bouteflika. The uprising has been serious enough that he has promised to stand down. Despite coming to power fraudulently and ruling with an iron fist for 20 years, media outlets (e.g., CNN, 3/11/19; Reuters, 4/2/19) have refrained from describing him as a dictator, with the BBC (3/6/19) simply referring to him as a “reclusive president.”

Indeed, reading the Guardian’s coverage  (4/1/19), one would have no idea he was not the epitome of a democrat. The New York Times(3/12/19) also praised Bouteflika for “bringing back stability” to the North African country, and “restoring the honor of the nation’s army.” As with Cameroon’s Biya, Bouteflika has never once been described as a “dictator” in the last 20 years of Times coverage.

 Kazakhstan

Another ruler propped up with US military aid is Nursultan Nazarbayev. The 85-year-old, in power since 1989, recentlyannounced he would step down. It was also revealed that Kazakhstan’s capital, Astana, would berenamed Nursultan in his honor (not a common occurrence in democracies—with Washington, named for the winner of an election that involved approximately 1 percent of the population, arguably not an exception).

Nazarbayev has a long history of cracking down on freedom of speech, the press and  religion, and uses torture against his political opponents. Despite this, he was presented positively in the media, with the New York Times (3/19/19) simply referring to him as the “longtime president of Kazakhstan.” The Associated Press (3/19/19) called him “the only leader that independent Kazakhstan has ever known,” praising him for “maintaining stability.” Reuters (3/19/19) claimed he was a “widely popular” leader, with none of the above using the “dictator” moniker.

The Washington Post editorial board (3/29/19) published a glowing appraisal of his tenure. It presented him as a visionary leader, an ex-steelworker “who led the former Soviet republic out of the empire’s chaotic implosion,” claiming he brought Kazakhstan into a peaceful, prosperous new era, while “building national identity” and stopping any ethnic conflict. While noting that he “ruled as a strongman” and “would have been wiser to view dissent and democracy with more tolerance,” the editorial implied his repression was justified, concluding “he won’t be soon forgotten” by his people.

 Double Standards

The double standard is highlighted by the constant media references to enemy states as dictatorships, whether the label is warranted or not. The Washington Post (1/4/19) describes leftist Bolivian President Evo Morales as “wishing to become a Venezuela-style dictator,” while the Guardian(12/3/18) carries warning of Bolivia becoming an “imminent ‘Venezuelan-Cuban-style’ dictatorship.”

The leftist Sandinista government of Nicaragua is constantly called a “dictatorship” as well. The New York Times (8/2/18) published an opinion piece from a Nicaraguan headlined “A Dictatorship Is Rising in My Country Again.” Many other outlets describe him as a “dictator” (Economist, 7/12/18; Time, 3/18/19) carrying out a “terrifying crackdown” (National Review, 3/15/19)—language that is never used for US-backed dictatorships.

And it takes only a cursory glance at the headlines to see how Nicolas Maduro, “the child butcher of Venezuela” (Washington Examiner, 2/21/19), is portrayed:
1    “The Dictator of Venezuela Earns His Title” (New York Times, 2/27/19)
2    “Venezuela’s Dictator Maduro Survived a Tough Week, but His Problems Are About to Get Worse” (Miami Herald, 2/25/19)
3   “Why Are Progressives More Focused on Disagreeing With Trump Than Countering a Dictator [Maduro]?” ( Washington Post, 3/2/19)
4  “Newt Gingrich: Venezuela’s Dictator Maduro Must Go—Even if the Military Has to Intervene” (Fox News, 3/14/19)
5    “Maduro Really Didn’t Like Being Asked if He’s a ‘Dictator’” (New York Post, 2/26/19)
6    “Gen. Jack Keane, Hans Humes on Venezuela’s Socialist Dictator Maduro’s Potential Exit” (Fox Business, 3/7/19)

Is it truly a coincidence that these three countries with elected leftist heads of state are constantly labeled “dictatorships”? Bolivia is not even on Freedom House’s “not free” list—unlike Cameroon, Egypt, Algeria and Kazakhstan. Venezuela and Nicaragua were recently added to it, despite the fact that both countries’ latest elections were endorsed internationally.

While there are some clear shortcomings to Venezuela and Nicaragua’s political systems, the US-dominated Organization of American States observed the 2017 Nicaraguan municipal elections and declared that “the popular will [was] expressed through the vote in the vast majority of Nicaragua’s municipalities.” (With 53 percent turnout, the governing Sandinista party won in 135 out of 152 communities, with the Independent Liberal Party taking 12 of the remainder.)

Meanwhile, Venezuela’s 2018 elections were endorsed by 150 international observers, including foreign ex-heads of state like Spain’s Jose Zapatero and Ecuador’s Rafael Correa, with three international election observation teams endorsing the result, despite the fact that US media wrote them off as a sham (FAIR.org, 5/23/18).

The same cannot be said for Kazakhstan, even by Freedom House, that notes that “none of the elections held in Kazakhstan since independence have been considered ‘free and fair’ by credible international observers.” Nursultan was declared to have won 98 percent of the vote in 2015.

Enemy states are covered far more and far more harshly in US corporate media than friendly ones. A search for Paul Biya in the NYTimes.com database elicits 97 results, compared to 1,135 for Maduro, 713 for Morales and 3,517 for Ortega, despite the fact that Biya has been in power as long as the other three combined. (Cameroon’s population is 24 million, three-fourths the size of Venezuela, more than twice as big as Bolivia and four times as populous as Nicaragua.)

In a recent article (FAIR.org, 3/23/19), I suggested that the term “moderate” or “centrist” has a tactical definition when used in the media. It does not refer to any political positions, but is used as a way of conveying legitimacy. Thus anyone the media approve of is, by definition, a moderate. FAIR (8/20/18) has also noted that a “regime,” in US media usage, is simply a government that is at odds with the US empire.

The “dictator” label is also a powerful cue, used by media to prime the reader to see a particular country or leader a certain way. Readers are invited to feel outraged at the misdeeds of Assad, Putin or other anti-US head of states, while authoritarian rulers that toe the US line are ignored or even praised. The choice of whether to use a word like “dictator” frames a country in a way conducive to elite US interests, conveying legitimacy or the lack thereof in a single label.

Analyzing the Politics of Central Asia

Islamic momentum being contained by totalitarian rule

By Ahmed Makhmoudov

Muslims around the world associate Central Asia with classical Islamic scholars like Muhammad al-Bukhari or Abu Mansur al-Maturidi and the so-called Muslim golden age. Thus, most Muslims have a romanticized and often unrealistic perception of contemporary Central Asia. Many Muslims simply do not realize that after living under Russian colonialism for 70 years as part of the communist and atheist USSR, many Muslim countries of Central Asia have become greatly detached from Islam.

Even worse, the current unelected regimes in Central Asia are as hostile to Islam as the Soviet Union was. In fact, today, in most non-Muslim states of the former Soviet Union (FSU), the basic rights of Muslims are far better guaranteed than in any Central Asian state.

With this in mind, let us briefly consider what to realistically expect in Central Asia in terms of socio-political developments in the near future. In Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, all these countries’ ex-communist officials rule with an iron fist. They have established family-based ruling castes, except for Kyrgyzstan.

Over the past years, Crescent International has conducted several analyses on Central Asia, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in particular. In our recent analysis on US-Russia relations in a post-Donald Trump presidency we have stated that “…NATO regimes see the Achilles heel of Russia. Thus, the campaign of destabilization in Central Asia is coming, as this will also create additional headaches for China. Beijing’s harsh measures against the Muslims of East Turkistan and the Western corporate media’s wide coverage of their plight are warning signals.” Taking this into consideration, let us briefly examine what likely developments might occur in each Central Asian country.

Turkmenistan was for decades ruled after its independence in the 1990s by a megalomaniac ex-Soviet official, Saparmurat Atayevich Niyazov. During his presidency, Niyazov wrote a “holy” book and hinted that he was a prophet. After Niyazov’s death in 2006, an equally ridiculous ruler replaced him, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow, who is grooming his son to succeed him. All the visible opposition to the regime exists only abroad, mainly in Western countries. The regime in Turkmenistan used to provide free gas, water, and electricity to people; this ended in October 2017. No one objected, not only due to the iron-fist rule but also because Turkmen society made no intellectual and institutional transformation from the Soviet era. For example, even though neighboring Azerbaijan has an autocratic regime, during the period 1988 to 1995, the Azerbaijani society had a short-lived break with Soviet style control, something Turkmens never experienced.

Thus, it is unrealistic to expect any sort of real socio-political transformation soon. One of the “problematic” features of Niyazov’s presidency was that he did not appoint a successor. He did not trust even his own family. Thus, after his death Berdimuhamedow took over. The current ruler is clearly grooming his son for succession.

There is very little authentic information about what is taking place in Turkmenistan. However, if at Niyazov’s death the system did not experience any shocks during the short power vacuum, it is highly unlikely that any changes will take place under the current circumstances.

After the death of dictator Islam Karimov in 2016, Uzbekistan witnessed a swap within the ruling elite. Karimov’s family was sidelined and the presidency was taken over by Karimov’s Prime Minister, Shavkat Miromonovich Mirziyoyev. Thus, it was a simple change of faces where no substantial policy or institutional transformation occurred.

Even though Uzbekistan possesses more internal politically active opposition groups in comparison with Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, they are weak and under severe government pressure. The Islamic organizations in Uzbekistan have been harshly persecuted and the regime intentionally allowed the Wahhabi minded groups in the country to co-opt some of the youth to undercut authentic local Islamic organizations.

The smooth transition after Karimov’s death indicates that the ruling caste in Uzbekistan managed to organize itself into a coherent faction. Unless there is a severe economic crisis, the ruling caste is under no immediate threat. The socio-economic situation in Uzbekistan depends largely on how Moscow would treat the more than 1.5 million Uzbek migrant workers in Russia who send substantial amounts of remittances back home. It is highly unlikely that Moscow would deliberately sabotage its neighbors who could destabilize Russia itself. Thus, the autocratic regime in Uzbekistan is under no immediate threat.

Kazakhstan nearly the size of Western Europe, possesses vast natural resources and a population of about 17 million. It is one of the more prosperous states of Central Asia. Like its neighbors, it is ruled by an ex-communist official, Nursultan Nazarbayev. He has transformed the government of Kazakhstan into a family affair. Compared to other Central Asian states, the Kazakh society is the most Russified and secular. Kazakhstan is estimated to have 3.7 million Russians and since the days of the former Soviet Union, non-Muslim Russian cultural norms have been dominantwithin Kazakhstan. There is no strong opposition; the only potential upheaval may occur during the transition period when the 78-year-old Nazarbayev dies. Considering Kazakhstan’s better socio-economic situation than other Central Asian countries, there is no reason to believe that the ruling elite will not be able to repeat the transition pattern of Uzbekistan.

Kyrgyzstan has proved to be the country of major surprises in Central Asia. The Kyrgyz people overthrew the remnants of Soviet rule in 2005. Once the new government was formed in 2010, it began to openly slide toward corruption. This phenomenon was a major shock to regional despots and powers. Currently Kyrgyzstan is the least authoritarian state in Central Asia. 

Sooronbai Zheenbekov

It is highly unlikely that it will slide back to the same degree of authoritarianism as the people have mustered enough confidence to challenge any group in power. In terms of an Islamic movement rising to power in Kyrgyzstan, it is highly unlikely because it is disorganized and the Russian default position in Central Asia is to have less Islam in the public sphere. Thus, the secular Kyrgyz government can count on Moscow’s assistance in containing the limited Islamic revival within Kyrgyz society.

Tajikistan has always been the pioneer of Islamic revival in the post-Soviet era, a perspective confirmed by facts and even by the detractors of Islamic revival. However, overall, the track record of the most successful Islamic organization in Central Asia, the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT) should serve as a lesson for all Islamic movements about how not to behave with despotic regimes and be defeated by them.

Currently, the regime of Emomali Rahmonov has successfully eliminated all challengers in Tajikistan and is promoting his son, Rustam to succeed him. The regime’s primary advantage is that it maintains a Russian military base in the country and can count on Moscow’s unequivocal support to sustain itself in power.

In Central Asia, every regime’s survival depends on how friendly it stays with Russia. The US might be powerful worldwide, but it is Russia that decides who rules in the post-Soviet space. Washington can destabilize situations and create headaches for Moscow in the post-Soviet regions, but its clout is limited and cannot establish functioning governments there. It failed in Georgia and Ukraine with Russia successfully aborting Washington’s plans in both locales.

One of the primary challenges for grassroots Islamic movements in Central Asia is that the Wahhabi narrative is gaining traction in the region, something Crescent International has discussed in-depth. This phenomenon is cultivated artificially by the regimes to justify the use of force against grassroots Islamic organizations. Another key obstacle is the regimes’ brutality and how easily they resort to force against even mild dissent. The two phenomena combined make a deadly mixture as it opens numerous manipulation mechanisms for the regimes.

Today Central Asia is fertile battleground for global powers. The only thing that can deter this from evolving into something very brutal and nasty is that all powers involved — NATO, China, and Russia — will suffer from regional destabilization instigated by whichever side.

Caspian Sea Accord – A Good Beginning

By: Kayhan Int’l 

The signing of the legal status for the Caspian Sea yesterday by the Presidents of the five littoral states – Iran, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Russia and the Republic of Azerbaijan – in the Kazakh port city of Aktau, could be called an important step for regional solidarity.

The world’s largest inland sea, which is rich in marine life including the prized caviar, although a peaceful body of water devoid of regional rivalry and closed to international provocateurs in view of its geography, has assumed added importance due to discovery of large hydrocarbon reserves that requires proper demarcation of the marine borders of the five littoral states.
The Caspian Sea Convention has been drawn up in 24 articles with the most important highlights being a ban on military presence of any outside entity or transit of its military consignments, which effectively rules out leasing of military base to a foreign power.

President Hassan Rouhani and his four counterparts – Qurbanquly Berdy Muhamedov of Turkmenistan, Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan, Vladimir Putin of Russia, and Ilham Aliyev of the Republic of Azerbaijan – who signed the final draft were optimistic of close cooperation for resolving the rest of the problems through strategic cooperation.

The high-ranking officials of the five states signed six documents for cooperation in the field of economy, transportation, trade, border security, fight against terrorism, and campaign against organized crime.

It is indeed a good beginning and hopefully the marine borders would be properly demarcated for sustainable development of shipping, fisheries, oil, gas and other resources, with emphasis on maintaining the delicate ecology of the Caspian.
At the same time, littoral states should be careful in laying undersea oil and gas pipelines that may be harmful to the environment of the inland sea that has no outlet to the open oceans and where pollution would become an ecological disaster.

Russia has connected the Volga – the largest river that flows into the Caspian – to the Baltic Sea through a series of navigable canals via the Neva River, and also through the Volga–Don Canal to the Sea of Azov, on the Black Sea. It is also studying the feasibility of the Eurasia Canal to shorten the distance between the Caspian and the Black Sea.

Meanwhile, Iran for its part serves as a land bridge between the Caspian Sea on its north and the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman on its south, thereby providing access to the open seas for the land-locked countries of Central Asia and the Caucasus.
These are indeed vital links to facilitate trade and economize commercial exchanges in the interests of the collective development of not only littoral states, but they also promise economic bonanza for South and South East Asia as well as African countries without dependence on outside powers or disruption of these trade corridors by them.

When the required technology could be procured through regional states, there is no need to permit rank outsiders, especially any extra-territorial bully with a track record of state terrorism, and organized destruction of nations to infiltrate the region.

Thus, as emphasized by the Caspian Sea Convention, international saboteurs, including the world’s topmost terrorist state, the US, should be kept out of the world’s largest inland body of water, and this means American firms should not be given any contract for exploration of hydrocarbon reserves or laying of pipelines.

-Kayhan International