Ya Bass

The situation in Uzbekistan seems to be going from bad to worse at the moment. President Karimov is in a stronger position than the leaders in Georgia, Ukraine or Kyrgyzstan when they faced similiar popular uprisings over the last couple of years. In such a closely controlled totalitarian regime with a huge repressive security apparatus ready and willing to do his dirty work then it's going to very difficult for peaceful protests or an unarmed popular uprising to succeed.

It seems to be quite a complex situation with different regions having different agendas and grievances with the government. Tashkent does pretty well apparently but the people in Samarkand and Bukhara are largely ethnic Tajik and face discrimination while the Ferghana Valley has a long history of being outwith government control. I think that's also the area where the Islamists are strongest, but what is happening just now seems more a matter of people protesting at the lack of freedom as well as the corruption and persecution in government. There is of c a danger that once things start gathering momentum beyond this initial focus that it will result in Jihadist forces being unleashed with a downward spiral of violence occuring with the end result being the replacement of a repressive dictatorship by a repressive theocracy..

So now is the time for the West to act. The European Union played an important role in forcing Yanukovych to let go of power in the Ukraine in the face of popular pressure, and the Kyrgyz president quit once he saw he couldn't get away with what he was doing anymore. The European Union however has no influence in Uzbekistan, and as the Russians are very supportive of Karimov he has intention of quitting, so i guess then it's down to the United States and that means Uzbekistan is a real test of Bush's commitment to the spread of democracy. As he outlined in his inaugural address in January 2004:

There is only one force of history that can break the reign of hatred and resentment, and expose the pretensions of tyrants, and reward the hopes of the decent and tolerant, and that is the force of human freedom.

We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.

Bush needs follow through on these words and the United States ought to do all it can to strengthen the forces of democratic opposition in Uzbekistan while pressuring Karimov to step down or at least open up much more to civil society. The old "he may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch" shouldn't protect him any more - not only is the promotion of freedom the right thing to do it also make sense in a strategic sense because such short sighted policies nearly always end up creating more problems in the long term. Karimov may well be able to hold onto power this time but he will eventually fall in the medium to long term and it's in US interests in the region as well as those of the Uzbek people that the United States' does not disqualify itself from participating in the process of democratisation which Uzbekistan desperately needs.